


William Watson is gay and does crimes

by Citadel_Monitor



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But like this is a happy story., Gender Dysphoria, Homophobia, M/M, Parenthood, Queer Youth, Trans Character, be gay do crimes, supportive families
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citadel_Monitor/pseuds/Citadel_Monitor
Summary: This is inspired by some doodles made by kitten-kin, the prompt was "imagine your OTP fusing into one more powerful being that will take over the world and pretend to be good things."William Watson, the trans son of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, sees a lot of injustices in the world. Sometimes the greater good can only happen when bad laws and systemic violence is broken. William from a young age has seen a lot of injustice in the world, and using his Papa's smarts, his dad's support albeit one that is full of exasperation because it is suddenly like dealing with two sherlocks, and some lovely folks who love him, he sets ofF to right those wrongs.These ficlets are not in any linear fashion, they are ordered by when inspiration strikes.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 56
Kudos: 14





	1. William Watson gets his start.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KittenKin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/gifts).



> This is the post that started it all:https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190542709559/william-watson-is-gay-and-does-crimes-text

William always had a feeling of being different all his life, he had two dads instead of a mum and a dad. To top it off no one talked about his mum, so he couldn’t even try to be sad when he talked to other kids with no mums tried to talk with him. He tried to poke around on the topic in all the places his dads store information and from what he could find, he decided he didn’t really want to know much about her. He also never found himself fitting into the categories that the teachers tried to impose of him and his peers. 

Some time around when he was seven after yet another fight where he knocked out yet another boy telling him what he could and couldn’t do, his fathers took him to a psychiatrist. The lady told them about how a lot of Williams behavior issues didn’t come from a lack of mother in his life or some trauma he couldn’t remember; she said that it was a pretty obvious case of gender dysphoria. She suggested to Papa and Dad that he start living his life in a way that fit him. He got a hair cut, dad helped him paint his room a color he wanted, papa took him shopping for new clothes and even got him a custom suit. Untie Harry introduced him to some ladies they knew from a long time ago who were sort of like him, and those ladies introduced him to some other kids who were just like him. He liked hanging out with those kids, Papa and Dad did not have fun with cleaning the slime out of his pants and trousers when he tried packing with a home made packer and it exploded (Papa at the last minute remembered that salt could break apart polymers and thus the clothing was saved). Papa ended up teaching all of the kids in the Trans Youth Program how to work with silicone, and there was no more slime explosions after that. When the silicone packers got a little too stiff and unwieldy, Mama Hudson knitted him a packer that provided just the right amount of bulge with no stiffness problem

And things felt great at least at home, school was taking a while to adjust and at times he was convinced that the school just wasn’t going to help. Eventually after an argument where Papa tore the school administration apart with his deductions, he moved to a new school, and it was great until one day, the teacher accidentally called out William’s old name, and unfortunately after that came out no one would forget. Not that he minded he knew he couldn’t change that fact about him, he just wished that people were better after they learned the info. Papa and Dad worked very hard to see how the teacher found out William’s birth name, and found that it was connected to his permanent record as a student. The school administration said that they couldn’t do anything about it until, William got a name and gender change, much to their frustration because they couldn’t change his documents until he was 18 and underwent gender affirmation surgery. Papa promised William that if they couldn’t get him on hormone blockers, they would sign the paperwork to get him top surgery at 16, and even promised that they would travel to the US fo medical treatment should he face anymore roadblocks to the hormone blockers; which made William worry about the cost. But uncle Mycroft and grandpa and grandma all said, that the money was there and that he didn’t have to worry about such things.

Still William was not happy with the situation involving his documents, but his dads were on the case. William overheard Papa arguing with Uncle Mycroft at Christmas Dinner, “It’s just data on some form, Mycroft, you are the British Government, you can change one little name and a gender marker and no one will blink an eye. You can do it from your laptop.” 

“William has wonderful supportive parents and family and a school that tries, not every trans kid has that, let him solve his own problems some time. I don’t know how to break it to you Sherlock, but other trans people aren’t exactly nice to other trans people who have had that support. I am not exactly fond of dealing with all the problems, a particular operative of mine faces just because he feels isolated from the larger trans community since he has been passing for so many years. So let him have a little bit of a struggle; it will do him good,” replied Uncle Mycroft as he snatched his laptop away from Sherlock. “Misery loves company, so think of it as guaranteeing some friends for when he is older. Your life certainly improved when you got friends and attachments, didn’t it.”

William did understand where Uncle Mycroft was coming from, but he really didn’t have time for that. If this problem could be solved by manipulating data on a computer, he’ll take matters into his own hands. He had his own computer, and he remembered that at one of the Trans Youth Program sleepovers, they watched Mr. Robot together (Ryver, one of the girls from the group info dumped excessively about how there were multiple trans women in jail for hacking bank systems, not that they did anything wrong they just wanted to prove that the banks had holes in security that needed to get fixed, but people don’t like being shown errors). It made him think, maybe he could solve this problem on his own. It just may be a little sooner than people think he should be able to solve it. And if he could solve that problem, what other problems could he solve with just some keystrokes.


	2. William’s first crime… or sometimes medical staff are careless and small children can and will use that to their advantage.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William Watson commits his first crime.

William’s first crime... or sometimes medical staff are careless and small children can and will use that to their advantage.

Sherlock saw through William’s act the moment he came home with a large amount of programming language books and getting himself enrolled in numerous online tech classes. William did show off some fairly rudimentary apps designed to help people with executive function issues, which did make Sherlock a touch bit annoyed, it wasn’t that he forgot those things, there were just better things out there sometimes. So Sherlock went to the hardware store and bought numerous locks. He locked them all and immediately forgot the combos. He burst into William’s room with the box of locks and handed them to William. “For as long as there were secrets, there have been locks, every lock has its key, once you figure out how something works, you can figure out a way to open it.” 

William at first was confused by his Papa’s actions, but as he learned more about hackers, he understood why his Papa gave him all the locks. So he solved them all in one afternoon and wrote the algorithm for developing the combo for each kind of lock. 

Sherlock was rather pleased with how fast William figured that out. He left a set of lock picks in the living room and locked all the doors before heading off to the lab with all the house keys in hand. He was impressed that when he came back that evening, all the doors were opened, and John made no mention of coming home to a flat full of locked doors. William was sitting at kitchen table with a small smile.

One day William came home only to find a guide to VPNs in his room and some print outs on laws of criminality and age. He learned which countries’ servers to work with to avoid detection. William just turned 9 years old, he now knew he had a full year to do whatever he wanted until the courts decided him capable of breaking the law. He knew his dad was a little too by the book to give him this knowledge, so it just had to be Papa. He promptly placed the info into his mind palace, and shredded the papers. He flushed some of shreds down the toilet, tossed some into the fire place, and other bits, he just sprinkled into various trashcans through the underground system. 

One day during group at the Trans Youth Program, one of his peers were crying. Willow’s parents still didn’t approve of her doing hormone blockers and she was quickly approaching the tanner stages that meant her only option was cross hormone therapy. Everyone in the group all agreed that was terrible. Ryver suggested that maybe one of them could forge her parent’s signatures, but Dylan, the therapist in charge of the group said, that even if they did that route, there was still the digital record and things like that would make it harder for Willow to access care as she got older. That made William even more interested in records. 

The following day, Mama Hudson couldn’t pick him up and Papa was too busy at the lab with an important experiment. So Dad had to pick him up from school and since dad was late for a shift, he took William along with him to the hospital. William was sitting at his dad’s office when he noticed one of the nurses working at a COW (Computer on Wheels) she tapped her badge, pulled a post it note from under key board, updated someone’s medical record and she walked away not even logging out. William quickly ran up to the machine, making sure no one could see him. He looked around for all the security cameras, and with much joy he realized that he was rather small and the COW was in a place where he wouldn’t be seen. 

He quickly called Willow, “Hey Willow, don’t get mad, what’s your legal name and your birthdate? Thanks!” William quickly opened the only file in the entire system related to Willow’s name. He quickly found the part of the record where it said, that Willow’s parents didn’t approve of the blockers and changed the answer to her parents giving approval.

The next time group met, Willow was over the moon, she had gotten to her appointment with the youth clinic, only to find out that her parents changed their mind with out telling her. The doctors administered the first dose of luprone immediately, since she was getting dangerously close to the cut off period. She said that she was glad, her parents changed her mind, and figured that if they didn’t tell her, then she won’t say anything about it, because she knew how her parents were. She was also glad that her parents never accompanied her to the clinic room and she could talk freely with the medical providers. William was rather pleased to hear the news. 

Willow was telling anyone who would listen that she got on blockers, and as Papa accompanied William and some of the other kids on the under ground, he listened intently to all Willow had to say. Sherlock raised an eyebrow when he heard Willow asking William, why he asked her for her legal name and birthdate? He smiled when William quietly explained to Willow why he asked, and Willow pulled him in for a giant hug. She promised William that she wouldn’t tell a soul, but asked if she could give the names for some of the other girls in the group who needed the same help. While Sherlock was pleased to see that his son having an altruistic turn for his crimes, he knew he had a lot to teach William on the skills needed to break the law. Sherlock was very much up for the challenge, but now he was wondering if they made nitrile gloves for someone as small as William, he couldn’t have William getting caught over something as silly as fingerprints. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But for real, if you are medical staff remember to log out, a HIPPA violation costs on average 7 million dollars in fines.


	3. The odd woman who gives William some tips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William meets an odd woman who gives him some useful tips.

William meets an odd woman and she gives him some useful tips. 

William was home sick from school and his fathers were away on a case, Mama Hudson promised to check in on him every couple of hours. He spent most the day napping compiling a list of names and birthdays of all the trans kids his friends from Trans Youth Project gathered. He was planning on the next time he could sneak into his dad’s work to swap more files. He was typing up a spread sheet with the names, when he heard a sudden crash.

He went down to the living room only to find a tall, skinny brunette woman, walking around with a box of ginger nuts, carelessly eating them, letting crumbs tumble to the floor. She paused and looked at William with a slight tilt of the head grabbing more biscuits from the pantry, “Who are you?” she dropped the box of ginger nuts, only to tear open a pack of tim tams. She was dressed in a manner that made him think hospital patient who stole some scrubs.

“I can ask the same,” said William, he found the woman to be quite unsettling. He made his way to the door.

“She’s out, went to the tesco, she needed more chicken broth,” said the woman.

William nodded, and started to head towards the coat rack in hopes of grabbing one of the many self defense items just hanging there.

“I take it you are the little Watson? If that’s so, I guess I’m some what your aunt,” said the woman. “My name is Eurus, I’m Sherlock’s sister, or as from what I heard Mycroft say, ‘The Other One’. No need to be scared, I didn’t know you were home. I will actually clean this up, can’t have you getting in trouble. Does your papa still have the sock index?”

William nodded, he didn’t really understand it, other than it being a way of ensuring that the socks all get equal use.

Eurus walked in his fathers’ room and opened Papa’s closet, she pulled out a pair of socks rotated them so that the fold was going downwards instead of upwards. She gave a rather crooked smile towards William, while moving a finger in a shushing motion.

William was confused, but did find Eurus’ action to be rather amusing, he was sure this was going to distress his Papa in the most amusing way.

Eurus went back into the kitchen, “Little Watson, where do your fathers’ keep the broom?”

William gave her the broom, and left to grab his laptop, he wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to leave Eurus alone. He came back and sat down in the sitting room, pulling up the spreadsheet. He heard Eurus finish cleaning up, he looked up only to see her looking over his shoulder. He panicked.

“If you are planning to hack a database, I suggest you don’t keep the evidence on your laptop. Stop it with the spreadsheet, and do that in writing. People can’t hack a handwritten note from a distance, they would have to physically, steal that from you. Also don’t write on a soft surface people can get info from the indentation. Also, you are going to need more VPNs that that, try having them go through multiple countries, and toss in a randomizer but change randomizers, don’t use the same paths too much. Also, I’m glad to see you are much more altruistic than I ever was, but honestly at the first couple of facilities I was in, it was mostly the trans kids who were nice to me. I don’t understand the fuss, they were all perfectly fine kids, it was being made to stay at the facility that messed them up... but people do like their categories and hate when they get challenged,” said Eurus. She opened two different flavored boxes of tim tams, and swapped them. “I’m not supposed to be here, so please understand when I ask you not to mention to your fathers or uncle that I was here.”

William nodded, and deleted the spreadsheet. He watched as Eurus opened a window and crawl out. He sat back down and started to nap He got startled as Uncle Mycroft came running into the flat.

Mycroft wheezed “William, did someone just leave the flat?”

William shook his head, “No, Uncle Mycroft, I’m the only one here.”

Mycroft stared at William, as if analyzing him. William tried to play as calm as possible. Mycroft took a deep breath, “do tell me if any strangers do come by.”

William nodded, “I will do that uncle, is there anyone I should worry about?

Mycroft sighed, “no, there is nothing to worry about. Your fathers don’t need to know about this okay.” He walked back out the door.

William smiled, “Okay, I promise.” He wasn’t quite sure who this Eurus was, but he wouldn’t mind meeting her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have done what Eurus was doing here at some point to my estranged parents who forgot that I still have a key to the house.


	4. William Watson is thinking he might be gay, he certainly is doing crimes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William thinks he has a crush and that crush is a partner in crime.

William smiled, he was hanging out with his best friend, Phineas, they met at the Trans Youth Project, and Phineas even transferred to the same school as William, after Phineas’s parents had enough the school administration of Phineas’s old school. They pretty much spent all their time together. They were inseparable, fortunately Phineas’s mother worked as a clinic manager at the same hospital as his dad, so they often would end up waiting at the hospital together when both of their parents worked late and Papa was busy. Phineas, already knew William’s plan and he through it was the absolute bees knees; they both found it absolutely loathsome that some parents wouldn’t allow their children to have a medical treatment that could save a life time of trouble; especially because the blockers has little medical consequences. They had taken to a wild game of capture the flag all over the hospital and their parents didn’t mind as long as they calmly walked the halls and didn’t disturb anyone by it. Little did their parents know that this game was actually a ruse to find poorly managed computers and to change the info to improve their peers’ lives.

Phineas snuck up behind William and whispered, “William I found another COW that was left unlocked, it is on the second floor. I already planted the flag there, hopefully it is still logged in when you get there” Phineas still had his hand on William’s back, just over his heart. “Oh your heart rate is up again, I really need to stop startling you or maybe your dad should check that out.” He winked at William. 

The wink always confused William, because he was never sure if it was Phineas’s Tourette’s Syndrome or if Phineas just did that to note that someone was being clever or maybe even flirting. William couldn’t even rule out flirting.“I’m not startled,” William laughed, he slapped a hand on Phineas’s back so hard that Phineas went forward with a wince. “I’m just excited, every time we do this little game, I get the most exhilarating thrill.”William took a deep breath, and tried to relax. These days he found himself wondering if the fluttering rush he felt while do these little games was the adrenaline of setting some wrongs right or that feeling people described as a crush. He wondered because despite them being 9 year olds; they were well into the age of crushes, there were even a few peers in his classes that said they were boyfriend and girlfriend, complete with never ending handholding and sharing of lunch. He spent every lunch with Phineas, he was sure he would enjoy the handholding, sometimes he longed for the age when boys could hold hands and link arms and it was just a social norm. William felt a lot of feelings and he was pretty sure he was lucky enough to have family that didn’t make him feel the need to hide who he was. On the other hand, he knew from the way his Dad and Untie Harry talked about their parents that even in his own family, there was struggles to get to that point.

William smiled at Phineas and walked swiftly to the elevator to get to the 2nd floor, he snuck around quickly to find the COW with the flag which was a handkerchief with a galaxy print on it. He found it and found that it was indeed still logged in, he attached his RFID reader and cloned the card used to last log in; he also quickly wrote down the log in info from the post it note attached behind the monitor on a piece of scrap paper. He pulled out his handwritten notebook and opened the files of a few more peers who were quickly approaching tanner stage2 so that he could switch the parental consent. The unfortunate thing was they could never be too sure whose parents allowed them to be seen alone, but it was something they discussed in group. They tried to get people used to the idea of telling their parents that they couldn’t join them in the exam room. So far it was working out fine, he pulled out a pair of gloves and started to key in all the needed info. He managed to change three files until he heard a sound.So he quickly shut off the station and ran off after removing the reader and spritzing down the station with the cleaner his papa gave him.He leaped out from behind the COW waving the flag in the air, “I found it!” 

An orderly pushing an elderly lady in a gurney passed by nodding and smiling in William’s direction. William waved and the orderly and the elderly lady waved at him. “Aww it is nice to see boys being boys in quite a kind way,” said the elderly lady. The orderly said something about William being rather sweet and a delight to be seen around the hospital. Something about those comments made William smile because to him it felt that somehow he could very much get away with this plan. He had a whole year of doing it before he hit the age of criminality in the UK, so he figured that this was the year to learn and to make mistakes before he took it the big time.

William skipped his way to the cafeteria and found Phineas; who was already waiting with an order of chips and a soda. He felt butterflies in his stomach, when he saw that Phineas’s face lit up upon seeing him; he hoped that the same feeling hit Phineas every time, Phineas saw William. He ate the fries that Phineas pushed his way, and took a couple of sips of soda. Some lady passing by told them that they shouldn’t share drinks like that, but they shrugged it off. They shared everything, who cares about a little germs from a shared soda. 

“Let’s go to the crow’s nest!” exclaimed Phineas. The crow’s nest was a little nook on the roof of the hospital, just outside of the reach of the cameras. 

William followed Phineas. The crow’s nest was where they kept a stash of hidden treasure, not like the treasure that was hidden in plain site, the knapsack his Papa made for him, the one that gave him the ability to do the little game a lot easier. The crow’s nest was where they kept a lot of the cool things they found that they knew their parents would never let them keep. He loved being on the roof of the hospital, but sometimes he caught his dad looking quite sad at the roof, William will ask him why someday. They managed to keep a chicken there for a whole week, until it escaped into the fire escape and became someone’s dinner, like they found out a family member visiting a patient caught the chicken bare handed, and when no one claimed it; the person took it home. The following day they saw the patient gleefully eating some sort of chicken soup, talking about how it tasted like their childhood on the farm and how the freshly killed chicken tasted different from the chicken bought at the shops. William and Phineas agreed no more edible animals after that. They were currently getting a rather impressive snail village going. As they reached the roof, William, took in the view of the city, he knew he loved it. He hoped that some day he could be free to wander the streets and learn it just as well as his Papa and Dad knew it. William turned to Phineas, “what did you make for the snails this time?”

Phineas smiled and pulled out a model of a teeter-totter, and it was made out of some celery, strawberries, and carrots. He placed it in the middle of the snail playground, he gently pet some fo the snails that were gathered on a slide he made out of a watermelon rind. “Is it bad that sometimes I wonder what we would have to do to make them edible? I mean I don’t think I want to eat them, but the more I work on this thing. The more I kinda want to eat it, I mean we could share the meal made from them. It is in that weird way like sometimes when you get a flower so pretty, that you eat it, that way it becomes a part of you.” His nose did a little twitch and he did a small lopsided smile at William. “Wait… do you think you can forget, that last sentence, i’m apparently supposed to keep thoughts like that to myself; the doctor says that the eating non food things is a compulsion I need to stop, and they think we are making progress.”

William pulled out a notebook and took some notes on the progression of the snails. “Phineas, escargot is food and, I can’t seem to be able to delete anything I do with you. I don’t know I like when you say stuff like that, it’s interesting,” replied William. “You’re interesting, my Papa says that when you find people interesting, you shouldn’t shut them down for doing the things that make them interesting. And I don’t mind if you want to eat them some day, we can do what the escargot chefs do and serve cornmeal as their final meals and sauté them in garlic butter. Also I don’t want to eat this batch, we found them all in the street, so who knows what they ate in the past. We’ll eat their kids.” William laughed and looked at Phineas.

Phineas broke out in laughter as well, “I like that you don't let my odd thoughts stop you from liking me. You're quite interesting your self, we can be interesting together.” He sighed, and placed a hand on William’s free hand and smiled.

William’s insides went absolutely wild, if a smile made butterflies appear, then holding hands was causing an absolute migration of monarchs inside of him. He felt a blush rushing to his face, and his palms growing sweaty. He paused with taking notes, and laced his fingers with Phineas’. William smiled back at Phineas, they sat like that in silence, and despite all the sounds of the city surrounding them, they were in their own little world up there in the nest, and it felt absolutely wonderful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know back when I taught nine year olds, some of them were already talking of dating each other. The amount of times I had to deal with small children kissing is more than I care to remember... like those were 11 and 12 year olds. The 9 year olds were firmly just in the hand holding and spending all their time together realm. I mean I was already getting an inkling of my queerness at 9, so yeah that was a thing. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are lovely, I mean I think i will keep churning these out because I am bored out of my mind post top surgery.


	5. A R... by any other name would be just as sweet or How William got his name.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How William picked his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet was inspired by this post. https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190717018495/okay-but-john-making-dad-jokes

In the early day of William’s transition, he tried out different names. Sometimes, Papa and Dad would take him to different restaurants and cafes to see how it felt to react to the name. But sometimes his Dad would say something that made him think twice about a name. 

First he tried Dylan, because he liked going to the shore, so he thought a name that translated to “son of the sea” would be cool. He found it rather pleasant to use and it felt good to use in at least the cafe settings, but one day Dad and Papa had him tagging along on a case involving a carnival. He had fun, but eventually got hangry. So he ordered a sandwich at one of the stalls, and when they called out his name out, he had a warm feeling of joy to hear it. He sat next to his dad, and upon finishing it. 

Dad leaned into William’s personal space, “I bet a Dylan dollars, that you feel much better after that sandwich.” Dad laughed, “get it a Dylan dollars, like a million dollars!” 

William scowled at his dad, he knew in that moment that Dylan just wasn’t going to work. 

So William tried another name, he always liked it when he heard Papa say things like “John, my conductor of light!” to his dad. So he thought it fun to have a play on that, so he tried Samson, because it meant “Sun Child”. A few days later his computer caused him a bit of trouble, that no one in the house could figure out, so they went to the Apple Store to get it checked out at the genius bar. The Apple Genius called out “Samson” and once again William felt good about the name. The genius struggled to solve the problem, and ultimately it was an issue that they couldn’t solve in one day so they sent it out for repair.

As they left the store, dad had a look on his face like he was about to break out in laughter. Dad turned to him and said, “Samson, if your mac breaks again, maybe we should consider Samson Chromebook.” 

William sighed and buried his hands in his face. 

Dad leaned forward, “Get it, Samson sounds like Samsung.”

William knew he had to find something else. He spent weeks looking for a new name, and eventually settled on a name that he felt attached to. He knew his Papa was a consulting detective and lived a dangerous life. He also knew his Dad was protective of Papa, but really the family as a whole. He felt that being a protector would be a good thing to be no matter what. So he looked up names that meant protector or defender, and he found it, “William”. He told his dads about the name, and dad smiled. William braced himself for a pun, but it didn’t come. 

Papa chuckled at the name but stopped when he saw William frown. Papa said, “Did you know that in my family it was customary to call at least one son William? It made parties very confusing, it wasn’t pleasant.”

William stared at his Papa, a bit confused, but liked having something to connect him to Papa’s family. “But, Papa, your name is Sherlock, and uncle Mycroft. Do you have a brother named William, you don’t see that much?”

“No William, I was so annoyed with being one William out of 20 at family gatherings, that I had to do something about it. So I chose to go by one of my middle names, I am most certainly not a Scott, so I went with Sherlock,” said Papa.

William smiled, and hugged Papa.

Dad came along, and William braced for a joke, but it didn’t come. “William, I like that. William it is then.”

For weeks, William used the name and loved how it fit, eventually he used it every where. Even the folks at school knew to call him “William” but his peers refused to accept the new name and when his dads talked to the school, the school said, that it wasn’t their responsibility to make sure other kids treated his son nicely. So Papa exposed all the secrets of the school administration, and quickly got him enrolled in a new school, one that William loved so much more than his old school. 

But one day, William was just not feeling it with homework. He found it absolutely boring and unnecessary. It was exactly a year since he settled with the name “William”, he was very much relieved 

The family had just finished dinner. John, noticed how restless his son was with homework, and smiled, it was time. He gave William, a large slice of cake, which made William light up. “Chin up William, you’ll get through homework, just fine, you have WILL power.” Dad wouldn’t stop laughing.

Papa just sighed, “Jawwn, you really waited a whole year to use that one.” Papa got up dumped his dish quite haphazardly in the sink without bothering to rinse it. He flopped on the couch rather dramatically and descended into his mind palace, his face a completely blank slate.

“Why dad, why did you have to do it?” yelled William as he gathered his homework and stomped to complete it in his room.

“I’m your dad, that’s why!” said John, still laughing. “And guess what, there’s more; but I am going the stretch them out and use it at just the right moment.”

On the couch, Sherlock had a small smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, I am recovering from Top Surgery, so these ficlets just keep spilling out of me.


	6. William Watson loves his dads but sometimes...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William Watson loves his dads but sometimes they get a little embarrassing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet was inspired by this post: https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190772311947/im-imagining-that-theres-a-kinsey-scale-painted

William and his friends were a bit disappointed because they couldn’t get movie tickets because anything that sounded interesting was already sold out and the next showing for any of those movies would put them out past curfew. They decided to grab a couple of pizzas and stream some movies at William’s house, since after all it was his 16th birthday, it was the first time his dads just gave him the spending money to treat his friends and let him go on his merry way. They had a lovely birthday brunch after all.

Phineas and Asa were carrying all the pizzas and sodas, while William fumbled with his keys. Ryver, Willow, and Skye were holding all of the presents William received and the birthday cupcakes.

They walked up the steps to William’s flat when they heard a crash, and what sounded like a sword fight. The teens all started to making their way back when they heard, “Captain John Watson, I declare war on you, surrender the booty and you might be spared.” William sighed, it was just Papa playing around, impromptu sword fights were just part of growing up in Baker Street, just last night him and his dads had a fairly wild match that almost killed a lamp. He motioned for his friends to come back up. They were greeted with a sight that William immediately regret. 

His Papa was in a corset, fishnets, and a tricorn hat. He was swinging a cutlass, and paused as he stared at the open front door. Upon realizing that it was his son and friends, he immediately dived to the floor to hopefully spare William any more embarrassment. 

His dad let off a short laugh, “William, you’re home early. I take it the movies you wanted to see were all sold out.” Thankfully his dad was dressed perfectly normal. He stepped to the side, and Sherlock tried to slyly crawl away, the teens all watched in stunned silence as William’s parents slunk away into their bed room. 

William looked at his friends and started laughing, all the teens started laughing along with him. They all gathered around the table, and started to eat the pizza.

“So... William, do you think your Papa, can give lessons on how to put on a corset, because did you see the cleavage he manage to get in there. I mean I know he is usually a skinny, bean pole, so consider myself jealous,” said Willow.

“Yeah and ask him where he got the choker, because it was super cute?” said Skye.

“And same for the fishnets, I always wanted a pair but I am too tall for anything I find in the shops,” said Ryver.

William sighed, “You ask him, I am working very hard to delete this memory.”

Phineas reached out to William’s hand, “William, it wasn’t that bad, it is just really cool to see parents who still goof around and still like each other.”

William’s friends all nodded in agreement. 

“That’s true, darling,” said William as he leaned in to kiss his boyfriend.

“Ugh now that’s gross, get your affection out of here!” said Asa with a faux rage and holding back laughter. “Look at you supporting each other and talking through feelings, it is absolutely appalling.” He stood up gestured his hand towards all the girls at the table, “Think of the children.”

Ryver scowled, “Asa we all are turning 16 in the upcoming months, we aren’t kids.” 

“Yeah William, I get that the two of you are 16 now, but that doesn’t mean you get to let that all hang out for people to see,” said Skye with a giggle. 

“But seriously, William will would it be chill if I ask your papa about how he did that corset,” said Willow still very much preoccupied with what greeted them at the door.

William sighed, “yes, you can ask him, but I am not going to ask for you.” 

“Nice,” said Willow with a grin.

John and Sherlock sat listening against the door. “Well it looks like you made quite the impression on William’s friends again,” said John as he kissed Sherlock on the tip of his nose. As they sat at the door, John was pressing some ice packs on Sherlock’s knees, since they got bruised from the impact of flying to floor to spare William some embarrassment. 

“It looks like I did,” replied Sherlock, “and apparently it cool that we still like each other.” He changed into some more conventional clothing.

The two of them started laughing, they decided to finally enter the living room and greet their guests. They opened the door only to find the teens in an all out sword battle. Sherlock noted that the teens weren’t using anything that could damage anything or anyone. They figured it is better off to not impeded on William’s party.

The battle in the living room came to a halt, as half of the participants went running off to the kitchen. “It looks like your dads came out of the cave of shame,” said Phineas as he gently nudged William while smiling. 

“They got nothing to be ashamed of, they’re interesting,” replied William, as they both ducked down at the last second as Asa, tried to make one last dive at them.

The girls were just flocking Sherlock with all sorts of questions and he answered them. Eventually he brought out his supplies for disguise making, and all the teens gave it a go on the various techniques Sherlock had for making a disguise. William laughed as Asa tried to apply some facial hair only for it fall off as he took a picture.

Eventually the time came for all his friends to go, and Sherlock gave them all money to take taxis instead of the underground. The teens all said that they had a great time, and his parents made themselves disappear when it Phineas kissed him good night.

“So William, did you have a good birthday?” asked John.

“I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much,” added Sherlock

“You know what dad, it was a pretty great birthday. And don’t worry papa I am pretty sure it was obvious that my friends absolutely ate it up.” he hugged his dads and went up to his room. 

Sherlock watched his son go up to his room, and eventually heard some rather loud music being blasted. Sherlock figured that he could restart the little adventure, as long as they stayed in their bedroom. “So Captain John Watson, will you surrender that booty or not?”

“You’re going to have to fight me for it,” said John with a cheeky and a wink. He promptly made a run for the bedroom door, as Sherlock chased after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments light up my soul.


	7. A Pleasant Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is a little curious about what his son is up to, and it leads to a pleasant evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up for some domestic fluff.

John watched his son as they walked home from work, he thought William had a rather dreamylook on his face was amused that William seemed to have a little spring to his step. He nodded every time William told him another snail fact, which was amusing because a couple of weeks ago all the facts were about chickens, then he suddenly got a bit somber about chickens. Maybe he heard about the random chicken that got loose in the hospital at that time. John did think it funny that the husband of one of the patients caught the thing and when no one claimed it; he promptly broke the thing’s neck right there in the middle of the hospital hallway. John did have a slight suspicion that William and his friend Phineas had something to do with the chicken, but even when he asked the security staff how the chicken got into the hospital no one had a feed on how it happened. John asked Mycroft, and he confirmed that neither William or his friend had ever even touched a life chicken. If William wasn’t talking about snails, he was talking about Phineas and what they did together. It was as if there was something on the tip of William’s tongue but he would pause before saying it.

He was please to hear from Maurice, one of the hospital orderlies, told him of the game of capture the flag William was playing with his best friend Phineas. William was really a sweet boy and he was glad to hear that other people saw it. Sometimes he worried that with the way the world is and his rough start to life, William might be a bit hardened to the world. He was relieved to see that William moved through the world with a bit joy that William seemed very much willing to share with everyone else. John knew that sometimes William, had more of an affinity with his Papa, but John wasn’t going to be jealous of Sherlock for that. As long as William had the support he needed, John was going to be happy. Often times John worried that William is going to be held back by the world because every system seemed to be geared towards systematic transphobia, but he also knew from how parents talk in the parents group that takes place the same time as William’s support group that William is lucky. William certainly has more support than other kids in his peer group, both in terms of familial and financial. 

He wondered sometimes how different things could’ve been. At times he felt like William’s mother, treated William as just some part of the illusion of normal that she was trying to put out into the world. He wondered what kind of parent William’s mother would be in this situation, would she have been supportive or reject William? Would she be genuinely supportive and treated William in the way he deserved or would she have been one of those mothers who was supportive in public and would treat the fact that she treated William as a human as just some sort of favor. He realized that he didn’t really want to know; he just didn’t care. William never asked about his mother, and deep down that made John relieved. He felt like he wouldn’t bring up the topic of William’s mother, unless William brought it up. It was bit strange, but he never thought about how much mums were brought up in social life. He also wasn’t sure of what to make about William’s lack of concern in that area. John was amused when Sherlock was thinking of a new school, he would ask at the info sessions if there was any project at any age where kids had to do family trees. A lot of staff would give Sherlock an odd look when he asked; but one school had an answer. It was the school that they eventually sent William to, the school’s answer was “absolutely not, families and their histories are complicated, and those are personal matters that should be handled by the families. We do not wish to have a family’s intergenerational trauma revealed to their peers.” But John mustn’t dwell on the what-ifs, he found his current life with Sherlock and William to be more than he can ever hope for. 

But John refocused his thoughts, he watched as William practically skipped down the street, and when it came time to pause for a cross walk, William would just have these excited little wiggles. John just couldn’t shake thinking about what was causing William to act that way. His gut was telling him that William might be possibly experience a crush; John knew William was hitting the age of first crushes and puppy love, but he couldn’t quite figure out who could most possibly be the object of his son’s affection. Unless… well maybe it could be, he paused in front of 221B, and watched as William jumped up each step. John figured Sherlock would be the one to confirm his suspicions. He followed his son into their home.

John and William were surprised to see that Sherlock had a guest, it was Untie Harry, who for the past couple of years has finally reached the point where they could successfully navigate the world in a way where they didn’t feel the need to use substances to function. They had managed to get back into their finance work but had recently changed to a bit more dealings with tech. They took on specializing in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, it made sense Harry was always more of a people person instead of a numbers person. “Harry, what are you doing here? Hopefully things are well,” said John. It wasn’t unusual for Harry to be around the flat these days since they often would be the one to sign William out of his gymnastics and fencing lessons, they were also able to sign Phineas out since Phineas lived on the way between the gymnasium and flat. 

“Untie Harry!” yelled William as he ran up to them and jumped into Harry’s outstretched arms. He hopped away and flopped down on his red velvet chaise. It was a plush thing fairly low to the ground, child size technically, but shaped in a way where William can grow up and still fit in it quite well, but for now, he could still dramatically flop on to it, with just as much flair and drama as his papa did to the sofa. He happily sighed, thinking back of holding hands with Phineas up at the crow’s nest. 

“William, honey, your papa was in need of my help, it looks like he can’t be the expert in everything,” said Harry. They had a smile on their face, as they leaned back in the desk chair.

“Honestly Harry, it was much faster to call you in then take a course on the CRM and location based marketing, I have a client whom is convinced they are getting stalked by an ex due to the kind of advertising and people who keep being recommended to her. Harry here, is giving me a quick run through to eliminate the possibility that the poor miss is just having the unfortunate cross roads of marketing and trauma,” said Sherlock as he waved at the laptop and a couple of phones. “After this I am taking this over to some folks at a hacker space so that they can ensure the client that her electronics are free of anything that can be used to track her.” 

William giggled and sighed to himself staring at his hands while smiling, but got curious about the place Papa was planning to go to, “Papa, what’s a hacker space? Also did you know snails have a top speed of 1 meter per hour and can lift up to 10 times it’s body weight.”

Sherlock had a soft smile, “William, that is yet another interesting snail fact you bring my way. Also a hacker space is a work space where folks can gather to do things like work on programming or even do some tinkering or inventing, I think you would rather enjoy it.” Sherlock knew what William was up to and even gave him some tools to make it happen, but he didn’t want to interfere too much. It was for the best really, William got his project and it gave him some autonomy in navigating his place in the world, he found it quite endearing that the kind of mischief William has decided to go into was one that would benefit others. 

William perked up, that sounded like a good place to find other people who had useful skills to pick up. He smiled, “Papa, may I please join you when you deliver the devices please.”

Sherlock leaned over William in his chair, “Of course, William, bring your computer along, maybe you can show them some of the apps you are working on.” He noted just how wiggly and giggly William had been upon entering the flat, he was curious about the hand thing. 

William rolled off his chair, and did a little scramble crawling at first, but a dull on run to his papa. He leapt into his Papa’s arms, “Thank you Papa, I promise I am already done with all my homework, so we don’t have to rush home afterwards. Also did you know the garden snail, cornu aspersum is edible?”

Sherlock was almost caught off guard by his son, but caught him at the last minute. Sherlock just had an unusual ability to always know when his son was making a run up to him. He hugged William and lowered him to the ground, Sherlock wasn’t exactly young anymore and William was growing pretty much every day. “Yes, William I was very aware that garden snails are edible.” Sherlock smiled at William, who was seemed to be more affectionate at the moment, not that it worried Sherlock, it was just funny that’s all. He also couldn’t quite make sense of all these animal facts, a couple of weeks ago it was chickens, and before that rabbits, and prior to that it was all about airplanes. Sherlock used to prize himself on being able to predict whatever would catch William’s interest next, but it has been sporadic as of late. 

“If I like the hacker space and they like me, can we keep going? Oh can we also bring Phineas, I think Phineas would also like to come,” said William as he hopped into the kitchen and peaked into the oven. There was a rotisserie chicken, William frowned at it. “Why must we eat the meat when it is still in the shape it lived in?” 

John laughed, “William, meat comes from animals, and you mustn’t forget it. Also, it just tastes better with skin and bones. You just see more chicken and fish because it is easier to get a whole chicken than it is to get a whole cow.” John noticed William’s distress. “If it would make you feel better we can just cut the chicken up before we bring it to the table.”

William nodded, “I think that will work.” He walked away in the direction of his room.

John pulled out the chicken, he was actually impressed to see that Sherlock managed to pop a chicken wrapped in bacon strips into the oven mid case. Oh, and he managed to put the chicken on top of some vegetable too. John smiled, Sherlock had certainly came a long way in terms of actually doing thing the right way when it came to good. He pulled out some poultry shears and a carving knife and set to work with breaking up the chicken. “Hey Sherlock, do you have any opinions on how to plate this thing so it isn’t chicken shaped any more?” 

Sherlock and Harry laughed from the living room, the two of them joined John in the kitchen, and they all took turns trying to make the chicken look less chicken-y and by the time it was arranged in a way that was least chicken shaped, they had to pop it back into the oven.

“Is it just me or is William acting a bit odd? The constant changing of interests that seems to have no pattern. He seems to have a bad case of giggles and the wiggles and he keeps sighing. And what was with all the sighing while fondly looking at this hands?” Said Sherlock looking at both John and Harry.

John looked at Sherlock, “So you’ve notice too. I am pretty sure he has his first crush, but given that he never had a ‘girls are icky’ stage it is a bit hard to figure it out.” He went to pull the chicken back out of the oven. “Plus little kids will talk about their crushes non-stop, but he hasn’t mentioned any girls at great length.”

“And the only person he is always talking about is Phineas,” said Sherlock as he placed plates down at the kitchen table, which has been free of experiments for quite few years now. Sherlock did most of his lab work in the basement or at the morgue these days. “Yet it makes sense Phineas is his favorite person, the spend all their time together, I can’t really figure out who William could possibly be crushing on.”

“Wait, you two don’t see it?” interrupted Harry, they gave John and Sherlock a hard stare. “The two of you are detectives and in a gay relationship, the signs are all there, but you seem to not see it. You two can’t possibly be still sipping that heteronormativi-tea.”

“Harry, what am I missing?” asked John. 

“Yes, Harry do enlighten us,” added Sherlock.

“He has a crush on Phineas Forrester, the one he is always with, the other trans boy in his year, the one with the pink oxford shirts who plays rugby and waterpolo, who accidentally forgot a lunch pail containing a model of a small village and a ton of roly-polys in my car, and info dumps about animals. That boy, the one who tries to learn coding because your son likes it; but struggles because he has dyslexia and ADHD and OCD and Tourette’s. I mean it is truly amazing what you learn when you pick kids up from after school activities,” said Harry, not quite sure how John and Sherlock could miss it. “Trust me it is cute, and they are nine. Not much is going to happen, and I must remind you that it is very much possible to be gay and trans at the exact same time because gender identity and sexual orientation are two totally different things. But they are stinking adorable, they are absolutely saccharine together.”

John and Sherlock stared at Harry, unsure of what to make of this potential revelation. “Harry, I’m gay and you know just as well as I do we do our teens in our twenties so yes,” Sherlock waved his hand in the air, “well you know what I mean. Also I went to an all boy school for primary and secondary school, how am I supposed to know what small children having crushes look like? I mean as far as it went no one bat an eye at a boy being a little bit obsessed with a peer, but they tend to chalk it up to admiration.”

Harry started laughing, “Sherlock we both gay, and I managed to pick up on William’s case of puppy love. You’re supposed to be a detective, one would think you would know.”

“I went to an all boy school, so no one was talking about crushes when I was at William’s age,”replied Sherlock taking a rather dramatic breath as he stomped over to the oven to pull out the chicken.

“Harry, to be fair most people wouldn’t even consider that a 9 year old would have a crush on someone the exact same gender as them,” replied John as he grabbed some bread from the bread box. He suddenly heard one of William’s giggles and he looked around not seeing him.

“What’s a crush?” loudly exclaimed William.

All the adults in the kitchen turned only to find William flopped out on his chaise. The thing really was too low to the ground, they couldn’t really see if it was occupied, if they were deeper in the kitchen. The adults were all a little too stunned to answer.

“It’s when you like someone so much that you want to spend all your time together with and sometimes other feelings are involved…uh… wait your dads will explain this to you,” said Harry, they quickly sat at the table and prepared themselves a plate. “Rub a dub dub thanks for the grub,” they said before promptly stuffing their mouth too full to talk.

“Uh… Untie Harry, is right, but sometimes people will feel… Oh is that Mrs. Hudson calling for help,” said Sherlock about to walk to the door, but John grabbed him before he could get any further. “John, you take this one, I am awful at this.” 

“Uh… being with someone you have a crush on, involves I don’t know it just feels different, like it feels different in the gut you know,” said John. “Basically you would know what a crush is when you got one.”

“Oh I know, the butterflies in the tummy feeling, and I know what a crush is,” said William, he started to laugh, “you are just funny when you don’t know what you are doing.” He promptly sat down at the table, and tried to serve himself, Harry helped him. “Also Untie Harry, we don’t say grace in this house, as far as it goes we seem to do just the Easter and Christmas thing, I don’t know why though.”

John and Sherlock just stared at their son. “He got that from you,” said John and Sherlock at the exact same time. They took their seats at the table and enjoyed their meal as a family. They almost wanted to ask William outright if he had a crush on Phineas, but they both knew deep down, that William was more than capable of figuring out the whole crush thing, and if he wanted to tell his parents, that would be fine, it’s all fine. They would love him not matter what and they wanted him to be happy and have all the support he needed in the world.

John smiled as his family ate dinner in pleasant conversation. Harry and Sherlock both rattling on about location based marketing and how it can affect people. William asking Harry about how do companies manage the info and what they could do with all that info and what happens when people manipulate the info. Occasionally Sherlock would toss in a comment. it was all rather enjoyable. John never really thought he would have something like this, what he shared with Sherlock and William. He also never thought that him and his sibling would be this comfortable around each other ever again, but here they are on just some random weeknight comfortably sharing a meal. Life is surprisingly good sometimes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are amazing. 
> 
> Why yes, I am still bored out of my mind and recovering from Top Surgery. Don't tell my office though, I think I actually want to be fully functional before starting work again.


	8. William Watson Smol Gay, Big Crimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Chapter 6, William's dads make a discovery and decide to leave for the night, while William and Phineas spend the rest of William's 16th birthday together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a small amount exchange of homophobia, but don't worry nothing too bad happens. Just skip the parts between the line doing this thing *~*~*~*~*~*. Also body dysphoria happens a bit too, but skipping it will mean skipping some important bits.

“At last Captain John Watson, I got you were I want you,” said Sherlock as he stood over John who was currently handcuffed to a bed post. “So one more time, are you going to surrender that booty?”

John was trying to hold back a laugh, at Sherlock’s playfulness, it was something that surprised him after they got together just how playful he was it was unexpected. Before he could finally surrender the booty and they could properly shiver their timbers. Something just beyond the window caught John’s attention, “Sherlock did you just see that shadow coming up the side of the window?” 

Sherlock nodded, he moved closer to the window while John grabbed his revolver. He pushed the window open and they saw at the last seconds of Phineas pulling himself through William’s window. “Well, that’s odd, Phineas is always welcome to stay, he didn’t have to do that.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose, “Sherlock, today is William’s sixteenth birthday, what becomes legal at 16 in the UK. Throw in the clandestine trip back into the flat and the loud music coming from William’s room,anyone could deduce what is about to happen.” 

Sherlock looked at John fondly, “I always love when you use my methods, John, but I think we need to make ourselves scarce. I mean I know that the average parent is probably supposed t stop this. But I don’t know but Phineas and William have been best friends for many years and like we both know they were probably going to hit this part of the road sometime. Plus judging by popular thought they do tick all the boxes for being emotionally mature and committed enough for this step. Still part of me is also feeling the strong urge to interrupt them, because cockblocking is fun. Or I don’t know buy them a hotel room.”

John laughed, “Yeah let’s go out for dinner and pretend we never knew this happened.” He proceeded to get dressed, “You can plunder my booty while we’re out, maybe we’ll buy ourselves a hotel room or find other options.” 

“Do you think Phineas’ mom knows where he is staying the night? I mean do we even want to tell her, because part of me thinks she would also be able to put the pieces together,” Sherlock rattled off thinking of logistics. He paused and looked at John, “Wait you want to have dinner and do something fun, are we dating?”

“I married you didn’t, so let’s go out for the night, have some fun. William will be fine, we can even be back here in the morning if you are so worried,” replied John, as he nudged Sherlock to keep dressing up. 

“I mean surely that can’t possible be all night, I mean average statistic puts the average sexual encounter at 15 minutes,” Said Sherlock as he added the finishing touches to his outfit.He started going through his phone as John grabbed the go bags. 

“Sherlock they are teenagers, I am sure they won’t be all night. Wait pretend I never said that, How do you do that delete things again,” replied John giving a shake of his head.

“They are teenagers and don’t even have the issue of a re... oh you know what I agree, let’s get a move on,” Sherlock grabbed some extras for the night and tossed them in another bag, he felt the need to still bring the tricorn hat. “Okay found a lovely room with a decent price near Angelo’s shall we take our leave.”

John nodded and grabbed the bags from Sherlock, they had been starting to pick up longer cases again as William has gotten older. William even joined sometimes provided he had supervision. William did have quite a bit of trouble as a pre-teen, he was an excellent hacker, but when caught things happened but well it was manageable he just wasn’t allowed access to the internet unsupervised. The silly boy wasn’t even allowed a smart phone, he had one of those dumb phones they gave older folks. The poor kid had to text in t9, because they couldn’t find a phone with a keyboard that didn’t also have internet capability. As they were leaving Sherlock yelled that they were going on a case while John texted William, the same thing. They managed to get on the bottom step only to bump into Mrs. Hudson.

“Oh, are you really taking a case on William’s birthday?” Said Mrs. Hudson with a hint of judgement in her voice.

“It’s his 16th birthday,” said John giving a rather pointed look.

“And he has had the same boyfriend since he was 13, and they had crushes on each other since they were 9. I mean logically, it isn’t a terrible choice of first partner,” added Sherlock trying his best to ignore Mrs. Hudson’s rather hard stare.

“The two of you are rather odd as parents, I mean personally I feel like he might be a bit young,” replied Mrs. Hudson. “Don’t you think he could stand to wait a bit more, I mean he is just a baby. And you know just as well as I do that the boy does get in trouble.”“

“Oh Mrs. Hudson, he will always be our baby, but at the same time he is also growing up, we must allow him his own autonomy and let him make his own decisions,” said Sherlock.

John nodded in agreement, “Also true he did have a bit of trouble, but was it really that bad. Also I think Phineas, has enough sense to make sure he doesn’t back slide into trouble.”

“Okay true, he really does take after you two,” said Mrs. Hudson and she stepped out of the way and let them pass.

Meanwhile upstairs, “Oh, that’s a surprise my dads seem to be out on a case,” said William as he carefully slipped on a pair of nitrile gloves. 

Phineas hopped off of William’s bed, “Oh *Squawk* that is a turn of events.” He also put on a pair of gloves and pulled out some plastic wrap.

“Well, now that we’re alone,” said William giving Phineas a cheeky smile, “let’s do this.” He unpackaged a laptop and tin can WiFi antenna that was all hiding in the birthday presents his friends got him. 

Phineas wrapped the laptop in the plastic wrap, which was slightly overkill but they figured it best to not leave any trace because this time, William wasn’t going to get caught. They knew the amount of times they could do this was going to be incredibly limited, so they had to do this right. 

William gently opened his window and pointed the antenna in the general area of businesses with Wi-fi galore. He picked the strongest one, a signal belonging a Starbucks, he started doing the bouncing across various VPN’s through various countries and having the final IP address he needed it to be. He entered the data base of the first health insurance company on the list and deleted the ICD code filter which made automatic rejections to people seeking health care. And got out he started the process over and over again until he hit every major health insurance company. Always picking a new set of various VPNs but it all leading to the same IP address.He sighed and turned off the laptop. “I hope this works.”

Phineas pulled the antenna out of the window. “Me too, because the claim denial process is bullshit and it is sick that when it finally gets to a human check the denial the board rarely has any medical professionals on it, it’s often times people who are more familiar with finance. They don’t even consider the human cost. I mean like sure we don’t really know people who will benefit this time, but does that really matter. Opportunities like this rarely happen.” He looked off at a blank space blinking a few times, and tilted his head a few times. 

William started tearing apart the computer as well. “I mean yeah but it is a bit shitty that we have to always find a fall person every time we do this.”

“Yeah but how else are we going to do it and they are always dead by the time people realize what has happened. Their avoidable deaths become an opportunity to do things like this every time,” said Phineas as he started deciding the piles of evidence and putting them in paper bags. “Jack, was a nonverbal autistic man, facing heart failure and denied a transplant because of his autism. He was already denied top surgery. His entire life was wrecked by denials, they’ll track the IP as soon as they realize what happened and when they do, they’ll discover a dead man whose final act was fucking up the system that fucked him. The press will catch wind of it and will be yet another moment to show how fucked up the medical system in the US is.” Phineas nodded his head, his nose doing a little twitch as he went back to cleaning up the evidence, he pulled out a magnifying glass and a magnet to go over the room to make sure every bit of technology was disposed of. 

“Thanks for reminding me love,” said William before dropping a soft kiss on Phineas’ nose. “Let’s head for papa’s lab down stairs, and destroy the hard drive and any other thing that carries memory.” 

“Ooh time to burn some stuff,” said Phineas as he grabbed the items in need of scorching and followed William down stairs. 

William turned on the ventilation and went to his papa’s lab microwave and grabbed the blow torch. Meanwhile Phineas dismantled everything on the drives completely and waved an electromagnet over all the pieces. He handed the pieces to William, and he burned the pieces to unidentifiable crisp. They placed those pieces after they cooled into multiple paper bags, and head back upstairs to grab anything else that needed disposal. 

“You know what love, I fancy some chips,”said William.

“That does sound lovely, *squawk* darling,” said Phineas as he placed the paper bags into an easy to reach in messenger bag. 

The two of them headed out, and started a long meandering walk through the city to William’s favorite chip shop. Occasionally dumping the evidence in random trash cans, ponds, the river, and sewers grates. As they finally reached their destination, they consumed a delightful amount of chips. 

“So William, when we head back, do you want me to stay or should I go back home?” Asked Phineas smiling at William as they held hands walking down the street. 

William smiles back, “You can stay, I do love a good cuddle, but also we are both 16 now.” William tried to do a eye brow waggle but it looked absolutely silly

Phineas paused and gawked at William, “Really? *squawk* You sure? *squawk* Wait... *squawk* do you think *squawk* we are ready, I *squawk* mean I think I’m ready but *squawk* like only if you’re ready and want to… I mean clarify please, because we can totally be having *squawk* different *squawk* ideas.” Phineas was turning bright red, and let off a few more squawks and some happy flappies.

William laughed, “Aww the angry chicken sound you make when you get excited is great.” He kissed Phineas and they continued down the street holding hands.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Hey you fairies!” 

William and Phineas turned around to see two drunk guys running up on them, they didn’t seem armed, all they had were beer bottles in hand. 

“You up for a fight Phineas?” Asked William. 

“You don’t have to *squawk* ask me twice,” said Phineas as he ran up to their potential attackers. He ran and bounced off a garbage can to gain more height and kicked one man in the nose and one man in the throat. They both went down unresponsive, Phineas immediately started running in the opposite direction, grabbing William along the way just in case the men had companions or the cops showed up.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

William managed to flag down a cab, and the pair jumped right in. “221 Baker Street, please.” He turned to Phineas and softly said, “I am going to have to admit, watching you fight does something for me, things that make me very much glad that we are now both 16.” He leaned in to kiss Phineas and it quickly turned into full on snogging. They paused when they heard a knock on the glass. 

“Oi stop that we are five minutes away and I am not in the mood to watch some teenager slobber all over each other” said the cab driver. “What the hell is it with Baker St. that always has the handsy couples. Jesus Christ on a biscuit what is it about Baker Street. You know I just had a pick up there and one of the blokes had an honest to g-d pirate hat on. Like what’s sexy about at fucking Pirate hat.”

William and Phineas separated and sat at opposite sides of the bench but still held hands. The cab drivers rant, caused them to descend into the kind of laughter that was so hard that you start tearing up and feeling a tummy ache. As soon as they reached their destination, William gave the cabby his fare plus a rather generous tip and they ran into the entrance an absolute giggling mess. They tried to make it up the stairs, but stumbled a few times, they found themselves laughing rather hard against the wall at the foot of the stairs. They managed to make it up to William’s room, and started to undress each other. William ran a hand along Phineas’ chest, but paused. Phineas had been on Testosterone since he turned 16 three months ago. Phineas was already starting to get a little bit hairy, it made William feel a little self conscious. He would’ve loved to start today, but the clinic was closed today, meaning they couldn’t administer his first shot, his dad did try to get the clinic to allow him to do the shot, but the clinic was adamant that the first shot be done on site. He tried to touch Phineas elsewhere, but all he could notice was the changes that Phineas was already starting to experience. He looked at his hand, Phineas had taken it.

“William, it’s okay, we don’t have to do this now. We have all the time in the world. Maybe we can try after you start T, yourself. And when you’re ready, I’ll be there okay. I love you,” said Phineas, before he kissed William’s hand. He got up and put his shirt and boxers back on, “I’m still very much down for that cuddle.”

William smiled, “Thank you, Love.” He got dressed as well, and joined Phineas on his bed. He allowed Phineas to wrap his arms around him and be curled up into each other.

“Are you comfortable? I can put on more clothes if you want, like I actually bought pajamas, because I told my mum, that I might be sleeping over,” said Phineas smiling into William’s neck. 

“I’m all good, Finny love,” said William as he settled more into Phineas’ embrace.

Meanwhile in a dark corner of a British government agency. William’s uncle watched the security feed. Mycroft knew that there was no reported breaches in the UK, but he was almost certain that William was up to something. He looked at the feed of William and his boyfriend going for their walk to the chip shop, and he was most pointedly ignoring the fact that Phineas did knock out two men who seemed to have been about to attack them. He pinched his nose bridge, he could just feel it in his gut, but he felt like sentiment was potentially blinding him in this situation. Or maybe just maybe William had finally settled down and stopped with the life of crime. Mycroft, thought that William could make a wonderful asset to the government if he wished, but he felt that maybe William was too soft and idealistic for the work of a government agent, it was a shame that he followed his Papa in that regard. The way he was hacking into data bases at such a young age, he showed so much promise, but William had a certain focus to his work, one that would stop him from being able to do the work of a government agent. Mycroft shrugged it off, he couldn’t exactly predict William’s trajectory in life, but all he could hope for is that William be a good person. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean for real like the claim denial process, is wild the person making the decisions isn't even required to look at the person's medical records before making a decision.
> 
> I mean yeah it is an old article, but determining the ethics of this shit is still in court: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2018/02/11/former-aetna-medical-director-admits-to-never-reviewing-medical-records-before-denying-care/#33ee161135e5


	9. Valentine’s Day preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William and Sherlock make some preparations for Valentine’s Day.

William ran around the kitchen as Sherlock put the latest details of the case into his mind palace. William knew that when his Papa was like this, William was free to do whatever he wanted because it would need a fairly large explosion to get him out of his trance. He climbed up the counter and grabbed the cream of tartar, flour, salt, oil, rose water, and various food colors from the pantry. He pulleda chair to the stove, and placed a large sauce pan to heat. He gently measured out the various ingredients and set to work. it slowly became smooth paste, and eventually it became a smooth dough. He put the dough aside in a bowl.

He ran up to his room, and grabbed some glue, dad’s shaving cream from the bathroom, and past by the laundry room and grabbed some borax. He climbed on to the counter, and laid down his ingredients. He added the shaving cream and food dye to the glue and some borax to water and slowly poured the solution into the glue. He mixed until he got an absolutely satisfying consistancy. He figured out one more item he needed to make his plan perfect.

He ran back up to his room, grabbed his tinker box and brought it down to the kitchen. He got into a flow as he gently pulled apart a bike chain as he wrapped it around a ball baring, he used a zip tie complete the loop. He started to spin it, in hand, he found the balance absolutely perfect. He kept it going for as long as he could when suddenly he was shaken out of his flow. Papa gently shook him, and he noticed a smell he previously missed. It was smoke he looked at the source and saw it was the pan he used for the play dough.

Papa was look in at William with a small bit of frustration, but also understanding since Sherlock had done the exact same thing multiple times. “William, you need to remember to turn off the stove, every time you use it. Also what are you doing? Judging by the colors I am assuming these are all for Valentines Day. Which I still think is a little odd for 9 years olds to be celebrating in school. Also we already made those star shaped crayons for everyone in your class. I know you like school, but surely you don’t need to do more?”

William looked at Papa, but started looking at his hands he tapped his fingers a few times before he softly said, “it was a gift for a specific person.”

Papa smiled at William, “that is fine, it’s all fine, but we are going to need to clean this all up first.” Sherlock was able to salvage the pan and cleaned off all the marks caused by the smoke, while William opened all the windows to air out the flat. “William, so who are you making this stuff for?” Sherlock already knew full well it was for Phineas, because the only reason William knew how to make all those things was because of Phineas. Sherlock still was annoyed about the slime explosion in William’s uniform trousers from earlier this year. Sherlock also knew that Phineas’ parents couldn’t stand the stuff becuase Phineas always forgot to close the containers of slime, which alway made a mess. Also it was pink, despite Phineas being a trans boy, Phineas’ favorite color was still pink which he knew was a bit of a point of contention amongst the boys in their trans youth group. He always saw Phineas pulling out the small containers of squish when he was antsy or feeling some strong emotions, Phineas would always barely open the lids and just poke at it a few times and immediately shoved it back into where ever he pulled it from, often times forgetting to close the lid. He had an idea in how William could really knock if out of the park. Sherlock also knew full well that John and him agreed on letting William come to his own conclusions and decide when he wanted to tell them himself. “William do you already have containers to store these little items?”

William looked around and panicked, “I didn’t actually think that far.” He ran around the flat looking for containers but he found nothing to his liking. “Papa, I know you hate going, but do you think you can take me to the store?”

“No,” said Sherlock, “we’re grabbing some specimen containers from the lab, don’t worry, they are brand new nothing has been in them yet.”

William nodded and grabbed his Papa’s hands, “hurry I want to get done with this before dad needs the kitchen for dinner.”

Sherlock nodded and let his son drag him to the lab in basement, it was put in while they had to rebuild all of 221 Baker Street. Sherlock enjoyed having his own personal lab, and John enjoyed not risking getting poisoned while doing his activities of daily living.

William always loved being in the lab, Papa and Dad always made sure there were a ton of locks to ensure that William couldn’t get in by himself but sometimes Papa let him use the microscope when he needed it. His Pap didn’t find it weird that sometimes William wanted to take a closer look at stuff like the scabs from scrapes he had that have fallen off or pond water. In fact his papa encouraged William to take closer looks at everything.

Sherlock pulled out some flip top lab specimen containers and a couple of rubber bands. “Okay William, when we head back up, grab your tape collection. We are going to make some self closing containers.”

William smiles at his Papa, “that’s brilliant, oh he is going to love that.” William paused and looked at his dad, slightly worried.

“It’s all fine William,” said Sherlock, as they opened the door to the flat but we must hurry if yo I want the kitchen free for dinner. Is it okay if I put the dough and slime into containers?”

“Yes papa,” replied William as he ran up to get the tape collection.

Sherlock filled each container with the slime and the dough, he thought it a good idea to get containers that could easily fit in pockets. He slipped the rubber bands in place so that it would snap back shut when it wasn’t actively being opened.

William came down and saw his dad’s little modification to the containers and found it brilliant. “What do you want to do with the tape?”

“Tape the rubber band in place,” said Sherlock as he gestured at the simple rig. “I figured you could do it in a way that will look nice, with all the colors of tape you have.”

William smiled and set to work, while Sherlock continued cleaning the kitchen. “Papa look what I made.”He got a nice striped pattern with the tape and the rubber band was securely in place. William placed the play dough, slime, and custom spinner into a red paper bag, and tied some ribbon around it.

“It looks wonderful, William, I’m sure who ever gets it will love it,” said Sherlock. “You put a lot of work into it. So is this for a friend or um... you know what I am not going to ask anymore.” He smiled and opened his arms for a hug, and William ran into it.

William nuzzled the part of his Papa’s shirt he found softest, he wasn’t going to lie he liked the feel of Papa’s shirts a whole lot more than dad’s jumpers. “So what are you getting Dad for valentines?”

“William, we don’t really do valentines, it is a little too sentimental for my taste,”said Sherlock still hugging William.

“But married people should get stuff for each other on Valentine’s Day!” Said William.

“William, your dad and I aren’t married,” said Sherlock.

“Well you should fix that I mean you have been cohabitating longer than the average marriages your finances are tied, and you are raising me. Also you love each other a lot and you still have fun together, it just makes sense. It isn’t like you are ever going to break up right,” said William with the seriousness that only a 9 years old with a plot can only handle. “I simply cannot abide by having parents living in sin and allowing me to remain a bastard.” William tried not to laugh when he said that.

“William, where did you hear that?” Asked Sherlock, “and if it matters that much to you, I will ask you father to marry me, I mean it is about time now that you mention it.”

William shurgged, “I mean I just heard it on the Television and thought it funny to say, but also yes I want my dads married. You can’t have me living with Untie Harry if something was to happen to dad. I love them, but they drive like a maniac and pick the worst dates mates.”

Sherlock laughed, “okay, you haves point there, but I am sure Untie Harry would listen to what you want before making any major decision like that’s”

“Not leaving that to chance, papa,” said William, “we are going to get some rings and you are going to propose tomorrow at valentines or I don’t know at the end of some case. We haven’t a moment to loose.”

Sherlock laughed but also felt extremely happy to know that William loved having him in his life that much to make him make a life long vow to his father. “Actually, I think I have something that could work.” He pulled a chain from out of his breast pocket, “what do you think?”

William looked closer, at the two rings they were made from bullets and had dates engraved in them. “What are they from? The dates must have significance, especially if you keep them on you so much.”

“Well William, one of the rings was made from a bullet I took for your dad and the other was a bullet he took for me,” said Sherlock, “I just like having them, but don’t tell anyone, we cannot have people thinking I am sentimental okay.”

“The rings are perfect, I am sure dad will love them,” replies William once again throwing his arms around his father. “Ooh and also some chocolate.”

“Thank you William, for your approval, and let’s hope your dad says yes,” said Sherlock. “Are you sure you want the chocolate for your dad or or you?”

William smiled, “if I say both does that mean you will get even more chocolate.”

Sherlock laughed, “we’ll see about that, maybe we can get it post valentines, your dad does love a deal.”


	10. Valentine's Day: Sherlock's Sappy Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that William has put the idea in Sherlock's head that marriage should absolutely be on the table, Sherlock is committed to make it happen. Sherlock goes through all the preparations needed and William learns some things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus christ this is long... but it was fun.

Now that William put the idea of marriage into his Papa’s head and Sherlock already had the rings. Sherlock was in a rush to set the plans in motion for of all things, he groaned at the cliche of it all, a Valentine’s Day proposal... but any other date of significance that was appropriate for a marriage proposal had past. He called Angelo, since he figured it was an appropriate for the situation restaurant since it was the one they first went to and the first time they had a dinner at where the intention was a date. Also it had all the markings of a romantic restaurant. He was almost tempted to ask Angelo to take down all the garish sparkle hearts he sees him put up every Valentine’s Day. Yet he knew that might be taking a step too far. He sighed, he wondered if he needed to have flowers or other knickknacks related to the holiday. He laughed at the idea of some of the possible knickknacks to give on valentines, he was especially amused at the concept of giving John a teddy bear that was the size of him. 

He was going to visit Mycroft to tell him about his intention, he didn’t know why but he wanted to tell someone, and he knew that the folks at the Yard would probably make fun of him, but also he knew they had a betting pool going on about the major relationship milestones and he didn’t want to deal with that. He was driving since he knew his brother always got tipped off when he took taxis to his place, he always liked catching his brother off guard at his home. That was when he saw it being sold by some roadside vendor. It was a 6 foot teddy bear in an oatmeal cable knit sweater, it was stupidly perfect, and he knew he had to get it. If anything it could make for a good laugh for the family and if no one liked it. He knew just the person to give it to. One of his homeless network and he children finally got housed and when he offered to purchase some house wares for her, he heard the kids asking if they could get a giant teddy bear, but their mom said she couldn’t afford one yet. He was driving his car, a Land Rover that was getting on in years, but it served them well. He was also starting to realize that they didn’t really use it too much to the point that he has realized that John didn’t know he owned the car until one day on a case and John said that he wasn’t expecting to a car of this age still in use for a car rental. Sherlock got the bear and buckled it in the backseat, unfortunately the vendor was a fan, and asked Sherlock if it was for John. She looked at him rather excited when she asked the question, but Sherlock gave a shrug. The vendor tried to push him towards a hedgehog and an otter, but he insisted on the teddy bear, he thought that odd.

He came upon Mycroft’s house and was happy to see a free spot right in front of the house. He got our rant the door bell, only not to find Mycroft, but rather their parents. He braved through all the hugs and kisses. “What are you doing here? Where’s Mycroft?”

“Oh Mikey went off to work, and we are in town because we got tickets to the theater,” replied his mother. “Can we swing by this afternoon before we head to the theater?”

“Yes, you may but John and I have plans tonight, we’re going out for dinner,” said Sherlock he tried to lead them into the house because he knew the kind of reaction they would have to the bear.With a sigh of relief his mother finally suggested that they went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Sherlock notes that the kitchen was strangely stocked, he knew full well that Mycroft existed on dining out, tea, and some combination of the anxiety of being the oldest child and being the British Government. His mother prepared tea for them all. 

“Oh good; I do love seeing William, but we have our own plans too; don’t think we are sliding back into the instant babysitters we used to be,” said Sherlock’s mum with a laugh. 

“Dear, our friend who had the ticket did say there was four tickets, and no one had claimed the other two, maybe William and his best friend can come with, we aren’t planning on having a romantic dinner and we are just here to make sure some tickets don’t go to waste,” said Sherlock’s dad.

Sherlock was amused at the sudden offer, because his mum did scowl at his dad for such a suggestion, maybe his mother had other plans, his attention was suddenly taken away, as a man who was not his father and not Mycroft walked in, it was... “Greg, what are you doing here?” 

“Um... Er... I moved in last week,” said Greg, he quickly grabbed a banana. “I’m late for work, I’ll explain... um never.” And he ran off.

“Oh Sherlock, surely you understand that this place is much too big for one person,” said his mum.

Sherlock accidentally spat out his tea, “But why Gregory?” Sherlock shuddered, he actually didn’t want to know. He tried to ignore what ever image it brought to mind, when suddenly Greg returned. 

“Sherlock is that a giant teddy bear, in your car?” Said Greg, who was holding back a laugh.

Sherlock sighed, “Yes it is.”

“Can you share with me, when you decided to get this teddy bear and when did you realize that it was a holiday that required gift.,” said Greg with a laugh.

“Now why would you want to know that,” asked Sherlock

“I have my reasons,” Greg gave an amused chuckle, “Well I am off to work. Enjoytoday, I am sure any murder that happens today will be a little too easy to solve.” And with that he exited, he was heard going, “You won’t believe what’s in Sherlock’s car.”

Sherlock laughed at Greg’s comment, he was sure it had to with the fact that the yarders sometimes were very bored and would decide betting on John and Sherlock’s life together was a worthwhile use of time.

Suddenly another person appeared it was of all people, Molly, “um hello?”

“It’s still too much house for two people Sherlock,” reminded his mother.

“But why?” Sherlock looked closer at Molly but couldn’t read any explanation as to why she was here. 

Molly laughed, “a confused Sherlock, that’s something you don’t see often.” She grabbed a granola bar from the counter and left.

Sherlock shook off the confusion and said, “Well yes, I am sure William can come with you to Hamilton, not too sure about Phineas. I know William has asked us to go, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. Just remember Phineas has Tourette’s, so he may need to fidget or tic while the performance.”

Sherlock’s dad nodded in acknowledgment, “Oh I remember how you were when you were younger and we took you to the orchestra, you were absolutely itching to jump up through out the entire first act.”

“There was an out of tune violin, and I wished for it to stop,” replied Sherlock. 

“Sherlock I know you don’t just visit your brother on a whim, why are you here?” Asked his mother. 

“Oh... I was going to tell Mycroft, you know what I might as well tell you, but I am going to propose to John tonight,” said Sherlock, awkward running his fingers through his hair, he knew that maybe he should prepare himself mentally for another barrage of affection. He was right.

“Oh Sherlock, I am so happy for you! You know if you told me ten years ago, that my Sherlock would have a fiancé and a child, I would’ve thought them stuffed full of malarkey or I don’t know maybe some sort of amphetamine or maybe cocaine who knows maybe some sort of delusion causing upper,” cried out his mother.

Sherlock winced, he was never quite sure when his mother would make some sort of jab at drug users, but she always seemed to fixate on his drug of choice back when he was using. He always wondered just how much she knew about his use, because he remembered always only seeing Mycroft when he was in rehab. But he tried to shake it off and pretend that his mother just paidcompliments, albeit an odd one. “Yes, mum, I am indeed full of surprises that can at times surpass expectations,” said Sherlock with a fake laugh that faded into a sigh. “Well, I must be off, given that this was a last minute decision, I really must continue with details.”

“Sherlock, is it last minute enough that you possibly don’t even have a ring,” asked his father. “Come with me.” He took his son to the basement where he knew one of the family safes existed. This house had been in the family’s position for over a century. His dad pulled out two jewelry boxes. “Okay son, I am going to tell you a story I probably should’ve told you when you were ages ago, but I am going to admit I never was sure when to bring it up. But you know how you got the name Sherlock because it was a family name.”

Sherlock nodded, he was a bit curious about the content of the boxes. 

“Well, there was a Sherlock Holmes, he was your great uncle, back in the late 1800s, he was from what we can gather, probably what we could call gay. He also like to solve crimes as well, but he had a companion or from what we could gather a life partner, who ironically also documented his life and was a doctor. He was actually the one to purchase the property in Sussex, he raised honey bees there in his retirement.” He handed Sherlock, the two boxes, “Back during those times it was common for committed gay couples to have matching bracelets rather than rings, since that would arouse suspicion. Basically him and his partner had a matching ring and bracelet set. I want you to open the box.”

He opened the box to find the name of the previous owner and raised an eyebrow, “Well the universe is rarely so lazy.” He laughed, “A Sherlock Holmes at the 1800s managed to have a Captain John Watson of his own.” He rarely felt the urge, but for once he initiated a hug with his father.

“It’s yours, I mean if you don’t want to use them, I understand, but I think at this point it is meant for you and John,” said Sherlock’s father with a rather large smile. “What were you planning to propose with?” He was surprised to see Sherlock pull a chain out of his breast pocket, containing two rings that seemed to have been fashioned out of bullets, he looked closer and found dates engraved. “Oh okay, I can see why, that is a little dark, but it is definitely fitting. Nothing says love and commitment than literally taking a bullet for someone.”

Sherlock smiles, “Thank you.” He walked back up to the main floor and gave his parents one more good bye hug, mainly because he figured he might as well give his mother a hug that he initiated because he knew how thrilled those hugs made his parents. “I’ll get back to you on the Hamilton tickets.” He held back a laugh when his father nodded enthusiastically while his mum gave a tilt of the head. He hopped back into his car, having a rather silly smile. He called Phineas’ mother, and she was absolutely okay with him joining William and his grandparents for Hamilton. She also warned that knowing how Phineas is during school day parties, and that Sherlock would probably need to swing by her flat for a change of theater appropriate clothes. Sherlock told her that he could bring Phineas over to grab a change of clothes after picking up the boys. 

He thought it appropriate to at least get some roses, so he bought an arrangement and paid one of his network to head over to the hospital John worked at and drop it off. He eventually pulled up to William’s school, and William and Phineas crammed themselves in the back seat with the teddy bear. “Hello boys, how was school?” He noticed that Phineas was covered in a layer that was obviously a cupcake mess.

“It was a very good day, *squawk* look what William made me, no mess with this one,” Phineas said with a smile as he showed off the self closing container that William and Sherlock made last night. “Can’t say much about messes caused by rest of the day.”

“And look what Phineas made me,” said William excitedly pulling a box out of his bag, he opened it and showed a wooden box that resembled a computer with a bunch of zeros and one on the screen, William presses a button which caused the ones and zeros to flip back and forth. “It’s an automata computer, he made it in the tinker lab at the library. He even made the design on the laser cutter specifically for me.” William looked at Phineas with great fondness. “Papa, not to be rude, but why do you got a teddy bear that is larger than dad in a sweater that looks like one he owns?”

“I got it so that I can use the carpool lane... no actually I saw it and it made me think of your dad, and I am sure he would at least find it funny,” said Sherlock,he was starting to realize how stupid it was.

“It isn’t stupid, it strangely think he is going to like it,” said William. “So what’s the plan for marrying my dad?”

“Don’t worry William, I got a table at a restaurant that makes perfect sense. And I told your grandparents what I was planning to do. And guess what, they’re taking you and Phineas to Hamilton tonight!” He laughed when he saw Phineas panic and looking at his shirt. “Don’t worry Phineas we’re going to grab you a change of clothes from your flat.” Sherlock smiled as Phineas sighed in relief.

William looked over the moon. “Really! We’re going to watch Hamilton.” 

“Yes, William, you and Phineas are going to watch Hamilton. Now help William stay on task for getting ready fo see the show,” said Sherlock as he pulled up to the complex that Phineas lived in. He managed to find parking and the kids bolted for the flat. He followed them, to make sure they stayed on task. He entered the flat and William was very much keeping Phineas at task, and at this point just yelling that Phineas, needed to brush his teeth and wash his face. Sherlock leaned closely William and whispered, “William, don’t yell, it only makes people on the other end want to slow down.” 

William sighed, “But Phineas keeps forgetting what he is doing.”

“Well, maybe ask Phineas, if he is having trouble with staying on task. That usually reminds him that there is something he needs to do,” said Sherlock. Phineas’ mother told Sherlock and John great length the regiment of meds he needed and when he needed to take them once when both of Phineas’ parents had to go conferences and needed someone to look after him.

William nodded, “Hey Finny, take your second dose of medication, we can’t have you bouncing around at the theater.”

Sherlock sighed, he wished that William tried a bit more softer way of saying that, but it looked like Phineas didn’t mind. 

Phineas ran out of the bathroom, and dived for his backpack, found his med minder, and opened the afternoon box, he popped all the pills into his mouth and swallowed it dry. 

“Drink some water, I can’t have you going down with an inflamed esophagus, I would miss you,” said William, “also trousers are a thing.”

Phineas looked down, and made an awkward squeaking sound. He was seen sipping water directly from the kitchen tap and promptly diving into his room. 

Sherlock sighed, he does get worried when William seems to be taking after him in the manners category. He also worried, that it might put Phineas off from William... but then John did stick around. So maybe William just lucked out and found someone who was just fine with him much sooner than he did.

Phineas popped out of his room, wearing a black suit, hot pink Oxford, and a black tie. “I’m *squawk* good.” Phineas also had a backpack.

“Phineas, what’s in the backpack?” Asked Sherlock. 

“Oh a change of clothes because with the length of Hamilton plus time it starts and time it takes to get back to my flat, there is a 60% chance that I am going to just crash at your place because it would be much too late for a small child like me to be out.” He wiggled, “I mean wouldn’t you carry an umbrella with a 60% chance of rain.”

William laughed, “Papa you have to admit he is right, usually he just crashes at our place any time we are out past 10pm.”

Sherlock sighed, “Okay, you can bring the backpack but it stays at our flat, you can’t have that thing in the theater.” He gestured towards the door and the boys immediately followed him out. 

They got to the car, and they all laughed because the teddy bear was starting to feel a little bit ridiculous. Sherlock managed to get them all to Baker St. without a hitch. They lucked out with parking right in front of the flat. Sherlock opened the door to car only to realize that the boys were pretty much trapped by the teddy bear. “On the count of three, I am going to need you to push. One, two, three!” The bear managed to come out with the extra help, and William and Phineas, helped to ensure it didn’t hit the ground. They managed to haul it into the flat only to get stopped by Mrs. Hudson. 

She saw the teddy bear and wouldn’t stop laughing, “Oh look at you Sherlock, getting Valentine’s Day presents for John. Or is that something William received from school?”

William shook his head, “No Mrs. Hudson, papa saw this bear and got it because it reminded him of dad. Isn’t it perfect!”

Mrs. Hudson nodded in agreement, “Well up you go, and Sherlock, if you and John need some time I will be available as baby sitter around 11, this year, no dates for me, the bridge club will be doing a galentine’s day dinner.”

“That would be wonderful, Mrs. Hudson,” said Sherlock as he dragged the teddy bear up the stairs. He swore the bear was getting heavier with each step. As Sherlock and the two boys got up the stairs, Sherlock realized what was he going to do with the teddy bear. He remembered the time John put a balloon as a replacement on this chair, so he thought that was the appropriate placement. 

William laughed, “I think that is a much better substitute than dad’s drawings for when you keep talking but seem to forget that we aren’t around.” 

Sherlock smiled, “Well we really all need to get ready for tonight.” 

William nodded and ran upstairs, while Phineas, went into the kitchen, and helped himself to the one of the many snacks they kept on hand, for when William has friends over.

Sherlock laughed a little bit, because he figured Phineas was starting to get a bit comfortable, at their flat, but he didn’t really mind, because he wanted William to have friends.

Phineas was on his second carrot stick when he stopped, “*Squawk* terribly sorry, but was it okay that I got a snack, the tics get worse when I am hungry, so I figure I need to eat before we get to the theater.”

“Not a problem Phineas,” said Sherlock as he walked into his room. He decided to wear a black suit and the purple shirt that John always stared at him in. Of course, it wasn’t the first purple shirt, but he knew how John reacted to him when he was in this particular shirt. He went into the bathroom and did his whole routine and ensured that his hair looked absolutely perfect. He smiled, he was going to do this he just hoped John would say yes, not that he would doubt any other outcome, but he did worry sometimes. Sherlock came out of his room to see William and Phineas playing a game of chess.

William looked at his father and stood up, “I think one of us is going to have to change.” William gestured at his outfit, he was wearing the exact same outfit as his Papa. 

“William, this is your dad’s favorite outfit on me, I am pretty sure I get priority to wearing it tonight,” said Sherlock as William and Phineas burst out laughing. 

“I was only kidding Papa,” replied William and he promptly went back to his game of chess with Phineas. 

Sherlock sighed, and sat in his chair. He started to go through his mind the best way to approach proposing to John, he kept turning them over. He was trying to figure if he should do this in the restaurant or maybe on some walk, or maybe save it for when the got back to the flat. Ooh yes back at the flat, the bottom of stair case the exact spot when Sherlock realized that hewanted John in his life after that chase in their first case. That would be excellent... ooh maybe he can try to recreate at least the chase part of the evening but he realized that he could risk loosing the rings that way. But what rings to use, because he found both option to be fantastic because one said, “I took a bullet for you,” but the other said, “we are so meant to be that there was a version of us in the late 1800s who were pretty much as close to married as they could at the time.” Sherlock figured he might just cross that bridge when he got there. His attention was suddenly pulled by John coming home.

“Sherlock what is that in my chair?” Said John pickup the thing a bit shocked at the shear size of it. He scowled at William and Phineas who were giggling. “And why is everyone dressed... oh g-d Sherlock, you got me a Valentine’s Day present. I... don’t have anything.” John panicked. “I can’t believe you got me a Valentine’s Day present. Especially one so... so... um ridiculously saccharine, I have to admit I actually like it. But it can’t live on my chair, maybe it can live in a corner, so it is easy to plop in the chair as needed.” John smiled, “Let's go out for dinner, Sherlock, I am sure someone in your network of people who owe you a favor will open a table for us. Oh and I got something small, just in case you are the reason 7 dozen roses appeared at our clinic with no card, don’t worry it made a lot of patients happy” he pulled out a rather stupidly large heart shaped tin of chocolates and waved it at Sherlock who laughed and he set it on the kitchen table. “Hmm maybe Angelo’s?”

Sherlock smiled, “Yes, Angelo’s would be perfect.” 

“Also why are the boys dressed up?” Asked John. 

“Grandma and grandpa had some spare tickets, so they are taking us to Hamilton,” said William, he bounced happily in his seat. 

John looked at William with a bit of fondness, “Oh well look at that, you and Papa are matching can I take a photo?” 

William ran up to his Papa and dragged him to the fireplace, he made his dad lean against mantel, while he dramatically posed on his little chaise. “Take the photo dad!”

John took the photo and smiled. “Well, it looks like I have to get dressed up as well.” John went to the room he shared with Sherlock, and set to work. He saw that Sherlock was up to something but couldn’t figure out the endgame. He did find the bear to be a bit amusing but at the same time garishly big. He looked through his closet and found the grey suit that he knew Sherlock put in there but tried to play off as something John had all along. He thought it amusing that Sherlock has the habit of attempting to slowly add new pieces to his wardrobe and he had to admit, he quite liked Sherlock’s choices. But he couldn’t let Sherlock know or else he was bound to come home to a completely new wardrobe without his permission. He knew it meant that Sherlock cared, but still at times it was a bit inconvenient. He paired the suit with a navy blue shirt that he knew Sherlock liked him and a purple tie that was the same color as his Favorite shirt to see Sherlock in. He grabbed something from his work bag and pocketed it. 

Meanwhile in the sitting room, William, Phineas, Sherlock and his parents were all huddled around the coffee table, surrounding the set of rings laid out. “One set here, pretty much plainly states I’ve taken a bullet for you, the other set just proves that the universe is rarely lazy and that we are so meant for each other, that a turn of events in the late 1800s is pretty much repeating itself now in a time where queer folks are able to be out and public with who they are.”

“Sherlock I am sorry, for presenting this other option, this may have been more appropriate to give during the engagement party,” said Sherlock’s dad. Sherlock’s mum gently elbowed him.

“Oh g-d would you really want to do the whole party and celebrations,” replied Sherlock, even though deep down he knew he wanted that so badly. 

“You put more effort into his first wedding than his own fiancé did, you are going to plan and get your perfect wedding, so help me g-d,” said Sherlock’s mum.

William looked at his grandparents rather confused. “Wait, Papa did what?”

“Mr. Holmes, you get to do cake tasting, if you have a celebration,” said Phineas. “I bet a cake testing is real cool.”

“Don’t be silly Phineas, don’t ever mention to vendors and venues that it is for a wedding, they up the prices just because they hear wedding,” said Sherlock.

Everyone looked at Sherlock. “dear it sounds like you want a wedding celebration, if you still remember that fact,” said Sherlock’s mum.

“You’d be surprise how many murders happen over wedding preparations,” replied Sherlock. “Okay I want the damn wedding. I’ll propose with these,” said Sherlock as he picked up the rings made with bullets. “And Dad, you are going to reveal these at the engagement party complete with the history and story of them.”

“Dear, don’t get your father talking about history, you know how he gets,” said Sherlock’s mum.

Sherlock sighed, “Well we got a plan, that is all that matters.” Sherlock handed the jewelry boxes back to his dad. 

“William, be a dear, and hide these because I am not about to risk loosing them as we go to the theater,” said Sherlock’s dad passing them to William, who promptly ran off to hide them, who knows where, well as long as William remembered, it would be fine.

The all broke apart just as they heard the door knob turn. “Thanks mum and dad for taking William and Phineas to the musical tonight. Mrs. Hudson will be back at 11, so feel free to drop them off after the musical is done,” said Sherlock. He saw the look his mum gave his dad, and he promptly deleted it. 

“Oh, hello, I see you’re here to pick up William and Phineas. We both can’t thank you enough, he’s been wanting to go, but we just haven’t gotten around to it, but it isn’t the only musical he had bothered us about, I think we might have a little theater fan in the making,” said John he smiled at Sherlock’s parents.

Mr. And Mrs. Holmes motioned for William and Phineas to join them, and Sherlock looked fondly at William and Phineas as they hopped down the stairs hand in hand.“Off to Angelo’s then,” said Sherlock, he finally got a good look at John, “oh you look amazing tonight.” He was quite pleased with himself, he was able to be rather exact withthe measurements for the bespoke suit even if he could get John go sit for a measuring. He enjoyed how the trousers displayed... John’s ass..ets, yes assets, it really showed off John’s finer features. John and Sherlock descended down the stairs and Sherlock flagged down a taxi. He wasn’t about to worry about parking for a night like this. He felt absolutely buzzing with energy, and he gently reached out and took John’s hands and smiled.

“Look at us going out for a Valentine’s Day dinner, next thing you know we are going to go pick up some other silly couples thing like I don’t know, making pottery together,” said John with a smile.

“As long as I get to be the big spoon, and we play ‘Unchained Memory’ by the Righteous Brothers when it’s our turn with the pottery wheel,” said Sherlock. 

John gawked at him, “You remember the movie Ghost but you still can’t remember who Madonna is? What kind of gay man are you?”

“The one who enjoys Patrick Swayze films. Also John, I hate repeating my self, it is clearly stated that under the pop culture segment of the gay handbook that the only pop star a bossy power bottom is required to know is Cher,” said Sherlock holding back a laugh.

They stopped at a red light the cabbie turned around, “They updated it to include Billie Eilish to the list for Bossy Power Bottoms, you on the other hand,” he pointed at John. “You’re supposed to know all the female pop stars and secretly enjoy them. You are also supposed to have an affinity for Freddy Mercury, but your farther tried to put a stop to that. You also had to a crush on George Micheal at some point of your life,” The light changed and the cabbie went on. 

John glared at the cabbie, “Okay that is a little too on the nose.”

“I can spot a military bisexual top leaning verse from a mile away,” said the cabbie with a wink at the rear view mirror.

John blanched at the cabbie’s remark and held Sherlock’s hand a little tighter. 

Sherlock has a small smile over that. 

“Purple shirt, are you his first boyfriend?” Asked the Cabbie. Sherlock and John nodded, “Awesome, did you get your toaster?”

“No, I am one short from the Tom of Finland tea towel set,” said Sherlock.

“Oh look at you, Purple Shirt, how did you rack those up?” Asked the cabbie.

“I was a double major theater and chemistry major at Oxford, and attended an all boy school for all the years before that. Also everyone assumed, I was gay since I opened my mouth, so boys kept coming out to me,” replied Sherlock, “those count right?”

“Well, in the high court of finest faggotry, technically yes, but they all had to sign the documents,” said the Cabbie trying to hold back a laugh, because John was having an absolutely delicious look of confusion. 

“Damn it,” said Sherlock, “I never got the paperwork, so I am still at the toaster.”

“I beg your pardon the high court of what?” Asked John.

“You don’t have to worry about them until you finish a bathhouse frequent fucker card,” said Sherlock. 

“A what?” Asked John, slowly building a list of questions he needed to ask Harry eventually.

“Not these days, you can skip that by donating over a thousand pounds to any LGBTQ org in the country,” replied the Cabbie.

“Fuck, every time I take a fee from a well known homophobe, I donate the entire thing to Albert Kennedy Trust and Mermaids. I guess we are going to have to go to the High Court meetings. Last time I checked they were in some tea room in Kensington,” said Sherlock.

The Cabbie started laughing, “Okay, I can’t come up with anymore.”

John was a little confused.

“John, every word after ‘the one who enjoys Patrick Swayze films’ was made up,” Laughed Sherlock.

“Except for being able to spot a bisexual military top leaning verse, I can always spot them,” said the Cabbie winking at John.

“And to be fair, everyone did keep coming out to me growing up,” added Sherlock. “I wasn’t even nice, I think they thought I could keep a secret; just in case.”

“Well, we’re here, it was fun driving you to your destination, enjoy your romantic dinner, and don’t forget to give a reach around, especially you military man,” said the Cabbie. He drove away complaining about military men who were two pump chumps and couldn’t even fucking bother with a reach around always tossing him out of windows when their wives or parents came home. 

Sherlock laughed and pushed the confused John out of the car. They entered Angelo’s, and Sherlock was immensely relieved to see no glitter hearts this year, there was just a soft twinkle of fairy lights and rose petals strewn across the tables. They were led to the table at the window the one they first had dinner in, all those years ago. After they both sat down, John and Sherlock didn’t say anything. They just held hands across the table, Sherlock quieted his mind and just took in John just as he was, no deducing, no reading for details, just appreciating how John looked, it was a comfortable silence.

A candle suddenly appeared, “It's more romantic this way,” said Angelo with a wink.

John let out a soft laugh, “I have been able to enjoy this place a lot more, now that I no longer have to correct him on the dating situation.”

Sherlock smiled, he was still holding on to John’s hand rubbing small circles into John’s hand, “Me, too.”

“I’m sorry, the fact that I was always so adamant on denying that we were dating, it must’ve hurt,” said John, he tightened his grip. “Sometimes I wonder how things would’ve been if I wasn’t so resistant to see us like this. The first time we were here, after that chase I found myself wanting to kiss you at the foot of the stairs; when we just laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.”

Sherlock paused and looked at John, “To be fair, I did say I had a committed relationship that night. I don’t think you would ever want to be a home wrecker.”

John laughed, “Okay but what if we did kiss, what if we got our heads out of asses sooner?”

“It would’ve been too soon. It is possible, I would’ve just written you off as some passing fanciful prance into normality. I may have even come to resent you. Or worse, I wouldn’t have been able to jump and save you from Moriarty. If I knew you felt the same about me, I wouldn’t have been able to jump, I was foolish enough to think that I held such little space in your mind,” said Sherlock. He wasn’t quite sure if he could look at John after making that admission. 

John took a deep breath, “You know what, maybe you’re right, but on the bright side it did give us, William.” 

Sherlock laughed, “Yes, it indeed brought us William.” Sherlock smiled, “I never knew I would actually take to having a child in my life, or well even a person who liked me enough to even consider letting me around their children.” He was amused that it was because of William, he was sitting here with a ring in his pocket. 

Angelo kept bringing course after course of delicious food. Sherlock and John both shared a look of “oh no,” every time Angelo talked on and on about how the food was going to be an excellent aphrodisiac. Sherlock also couldn’t figure out why Angelo kept winking at them.

Finally came the dessert, chocolate dipped strawberries, Sherlock laughed because the way John bit into the strawberry reminded him of the first time they were here. And John was eating that ridiculous cherry tomato and that conversation on attachments. “So do you have a girlfriend?”

John laughed, “No, not for quite some time.”

Sherlock leaned in, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

John smirked, “Yes, but I think I want a change.”

Sherlock insides instantly froze, he got up and made way for a door. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t enough, he thought he was doing enough.

“Shit fuck, oh crap,” John reached into his pocket and yelled, “Sherlock, wait!” 

Sherlock turned around only to see John on bended knee holding out a holding out jewelry box, he stopped his exit and went up to John,

“Sherlock, will you please marry me? I don’t just want a boyfriend, I want a husband. You have absolutely changed my life and no matter the challenge you always come and stepped up, you are more than I ever deserved and I hope that I will be enough, I want you forever. So please will you marry me?” begged John, he was sure he wanted this, but it didn’t stop him from shaking as he asked this important question.

“John,” Sherlock walked up to him and he also dropped to a knee andpulled out his own set of rings. “Yes, I will marry you, I made a vow a long time ago, to protect you and everyone in your life, but I want to renew that vow knowing that you feel the same way.” 

John had his mouth hanging open in surprise, he scrambled to put the simple platinum band on Sherlock’s finger, because he had been wanting to do that for ages. The timing just never was quite right.

Sherlock returned the favor and slipped his ring onto John’s fingers, they both went back to their table, and much to his dislike everyone in the restaurant was applauding. They found a bottle of champagne waiting for them, and even more chocolate strawberries. They kissed before sitting down. 

Angelo approached them clasping his hands, “I knew when Mr. Holmes first brought you here, something special was going to happen.” Angelo turned towards Sherlock, “Did you know he is why the restaurant is decorated like this tonight, he said you don’t like the hearts and sparkle, he wanted things perfect tonight, but when you called this morning I was surprised and delighted. I love keeping a good secret, but I’ll leave you two love birds alone.” Angelo walked away with a spring in his step.

Sherlock smiled, “Did he just say you called and made sure it wasn’t a paper heart spectacular. I thought you forgot it was Valentine’s Day.”

John smirked, “Yeah I had to pretend it wasn’t Valentine’s Day because we don’t do Valentine’s, and I wanted to finally propose to you. I was tired of letting time go by without making this a forever thing,” John reached across the table, and took Sherlock’s had, “I mean have been a forever thing for a while now, I just want to cover our possibilities.”

The two of them spent a little bit of time in companionate silence as they sipped champagne and smiled at each other. Sherlock thought about how it was true, there really was a point where this all felt unlikely and even absolutely insane but here they were engaged and raising a kid. It was a long journey but they finally got there. Sherlock was brought out of his little internal thought by a question.

“So Sherlock, the ceremony, what are you thinking? It really is up to you, whatever makes you happy,” said John smiling and leaning into Sherlock’s personal space. “I mean we both already know you can arrange a lovely wedding and give an excellent speech.” He held Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock smiled and also leaned toward’s John. “It’s silly, I want the whole rigamarole, I mean I can skip a stag night, because I really can’t think of anyone who would want to do that with me. All the other stuff I want to do that; it’s stupid but I think I wouldn’t even mind telling the venue and services we try to approach that this is all for a wedding, even though I know it would only cause the prices to go up.”

John laughed, “Just a different photographer, we can’t have another murder attempt.”

“I didn’t pick the photographer, Mary did,” replied Sherlock.

“Okay I am starting to think she just wanted to kill everyone in my life,” John sighed.

“Well, enough about her,” said Sherlock with a bit of bite. It had been well a couple of years since even the thought of Mary happened between the two of them. It was a bit of strange relief that Sherlock didn’t find her haunting their lives. The last time he even thought of her, it was only because they were taking William to a psychiatrist because they thought he was going down the route of becoming a diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, which as Sherlock grew older was not the way to describe himself, but the other way to describe him made people feel pity for him. He was glad that in the end the issue wasn’t even anything Mary had her hand in… unless you wanted to blame epigenetic factors, but you know how it goes, you find a scientific reason for a thing and people might start hunting for a cure. But well yes, either way, neither Sherlock or John had thought about Mary in years, and that was fine.

“You know I can’t wait to make my vow to you,” said John as he smiled, he loved the idea of actually saying how he felt about Sherlock to all the people they knew, because he spent so long denying it, it just felt right to finally commit to Sherlock.

Sherlock smiled, “Yes, I can’t wait to make a vow to you and it not be in an overly sentimental speech, that left people with a lot of questions. You know I accidentally saw text chain between Molly, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, about that whole speech. I apparently revealed more than I thought that day.”

John laughed, “True, I had some many texts from confused cousins; one of them was keeping a tab of how many times you were mentioned versus Mary… I had an aunt who thought she was tricked into coming to some kind of lavender marriage situation. She kept trying to drop hints that marriage equality was already starting that year and that I shouldn’t string the poor girl along.”

Sherlock paused mid sip and looked at John, they locked eyes for a few seconds before breaking out in the kind of laughter that hurts the stomach, bringing along some happy tears, and a bit of knee slapping. But somewhere the wires got crossed and Sherlock’s hand landed on John’s thigh. Sherlock sucked in a deep breath and looked at John… they shared a glance.

“I don’t mind,” John said with a wink. 

Sherlock sucked in a breath, paused, and a little louder than he should’ve called out, “Check!”

Angelo peaked out from a small hub where the Back of House interacted with the Front of House. “You never have to pay for anything here!”

Sherlock happened to see the cost of the prix fixe menu and left a tip that would’ve equaled the meal purchased. He jumped up and grabbed John’s hand, felt a slight thrill at the feel of his ring being on John’s finger. Sherlock quickly grabbed a taxi and shoved John into it. A soon as they were moving again, Sherlock pulled John towards him and they started making out. 

The cabbie, was a bit excited because it was his faire from earlier, he really enjoyed the conversation they had. They hit a stop sign, he turned around in hopes of starting the conversation again, only to find the pair snogging each other and potentially heading down the road to more. He shrugged his shoulders, and knocked on the partition. His passengers paused and looked at him. “I don’t mind, you do you, but don’t forget the reach around, military man.” He smirked as the passengers laughed and went back to kissing. He closed the partition and picked the Spotify station he played for gay couples not the one he played for those coming from a circuit party, nah he pulled out that shit you play when driving around Pride, and you want to make people feel even more in love than usual. Of course, he did see the rings that were previously not there, so of course, he had to bust out that Betty Who “somebody loves you.” He also felt like it would totally be appropriate to play some men’s cover of Mary Lambert’s “She Keeps Me Warm”. Might just skip Sam Smith, definitely keep in that Troye Sivan. He always loved getting a queer couple on the heterosexual holidays, dealing with these two, felt like a quick holiday from his current nightmare of endless faires of straight couples just being obnoxious. He pulled up to 221B, and the couples spilled out but not before the purple shirted one swiped his card. He noticed the name, “Oh my fucking g-d, that was fuck!Sherlock FUCKING Holmes. Him and the blogger are getting married and getting it on. YES you twinkly detective get your man. I bet that military man has a big cock.” He let out an excited squeal and drove off, he wanted to tell his friends, but was going to hold off until the couple made an official announcement because he knew how the media treated those two.

John and Sherlock were currently paused at their front door, trying to find their keys, which was proving difficult because they were still being rather handsy together. “I wonder what’s that about,” asked John.

Sherlock caught a glimpse at the cabbie who was having a bit of a moment, “John, I don’t think I can bring myself to care.” He finally found his keys, and opened the door. They tumbled their way in, and Sherlock threw John against the wall at the foot of the stairs and kissed John like he wished he did, all those years ago. They caught their breath. They could hear William and Phineas loudly singing “My Shot” to Mrs. Hudson, they were also very much convince that the two boys were probably attempting the choreography as well. They laughed for a short moment before running upstairs. They proceeded to have a night that made Sherlock very much glad that he got sound proofing installed between the flats when they had to rebuild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am still bored from Top Surgery, but some new pains have settled in. I was supposed to watch Hamilton on Valentine's Day this year, but the surgery was super last minute and I didn't get ticket insurance. I mean fortunately I already saw it once before, so I gave the tickets to some teens I work with who wanted to see it but I know they can't afford to spare any money that comes their way.


	11. William Watson messenger of positivity...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William tries to be a messenger of positivity but his dad has feelings about William's ability to do as he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The post that inspired this ficlet: https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190894728833/john-will-your-bed-isnt-made-in-fact-i-dont

“Well the message isn’t getting delivered if you can’t find the will power to will power to do what you are asking other people to do,” replied John.

“Papa, dad is doing it again!” yelled William.

Sherlock came in to the kitchen, William had his laptop out in front of him, which told him that once again William was probably revisiting his vlog idea. He really was hoping he wouldn’t do it, because he was smol and full of ideals, and his tolerance for bullies were low and his determination and ability to get revenge was a little too high for some one who needed parental permission on the internet in the first place. Sherlock sighed, “John it is even March and you have already done 4 name puns.” He went to the desk and pulled out an envelope and laid a form on the kitchen table. John and William both signed the piece of paper and Sherlock looked at it. “John, you are only allowed 12 name puns a year, as you bargained with William, and if you do an overage, you have to promise to get him the item for which he asked. Every year we have had to buy the item, how else does he have a smart phone, when all his peers are still getting over glorified walkie-talkies with GPS trackers. Remember what he asked for this year.”

John laughed, “I can control myself, I will give it my all. I will not let you down.”

“Papa, can the argument be made that those also count as puns,” asked William.

Sherlock glared at John, “William if you can explain easily available alternative word for will in the next 5 seconds, I will grant it.”

“He could’ve used ‘promise’ instead not only is it a synonym in this case but also carries more weight than the word ‘will’ as the verb for those sentences,” replied William with a happy wiggle.

John looked off in the distance, realizing what he had just done. He knew he would have to be careful, because this was the year William decided to really up the ante with the contract. It wasn’t something spectacularly terrible, it would just be inconvenient. William wanted a dog, and not just any dog, no he had to want a corgi basset, and he wanted it to be a puppy, because apparently he had plans. Plans that he would not share with his parents. John and Sherlock also agreed that William was little too young for a dog especially one that was known to be stubborn and incredibly intelligent. Also John wasn’t quite sure just how much of the combo of stubborn and intelligent can be added to their household.

Sherlock sighed, “Yes William, that is a solid argument, and I grant the motion.” He gestured at the paper, which William gleefully signed.

John paused, “I’ll sign, but you have to promise to fix your bed all of this week.”

William glared at John, “Fine Dad, but it doesn’t have to be to your military standard.” 

John sighed, “it’s a start.” He signed the paper, and Sherlock, promptly returned it to its spot in the desk. “oh and William dear, folding all the blankets and putting it on the foot of the bed doesn’t count.”

William glared as his dad before dramatically turning around and stomping his way back to his room. 


	12. William and Sherlock science a way.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock helps William science his way to a solution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the post that inspired this ficlet: https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190840411089/text-generated-here-keep-reading-tag-stash
> 
> I don't know my dad taught me welding and soldering at around age 9 and 10... he taught me how us a power drill at 3... it didn't go well. Um basically I lived a childhood that gives me a wild idea on what age is appropriate for some skills.

John watched as William struggled with ways to repair one of his favorite toys, and that endeavor was threatening to take over the whole kitchen. It was a bit older, most certainly older than William, but Harry gave it to William the first time they met, it was steel pullback car model of an Aston Martin DB5, it was amusing because Harry picked it because it looked just like the car he had as a small kid but it got destroyed by his dad during one of his rage attacks. Harry also assumed that John was not going to have any delay in showing William some Bond Films. It was seen as a bit of any unusual choice at the time but now it fit William perfectly. John knew William was the kind of kid who liked to repair things and if not that, take them apart to make them something new, so he gave William his space to struggle. He was always fond of how much he has repaired his honey bee stuffy after all this time and he knew Sherlock appreciated it too, since it was a gift from him after all. 

“Dad! I give up I can’t fix it! I tried every method I could think of but it’s welded shut and any screw I can think of moving might make it worse!” Said William holding back tears, but a single tear still managed to escape. He climbed onto his dad’s lap and shoved his face into his dad’s sweater and released even more tears.

“Darling, I am sure you got enough will pow-OUCH! William you don’t bite people,” said John quite cross at the fact that his son decided to bite him just because he managed squeeze out a name pun again. 

Sherlock burst through the door it had been almost 72 hours since either John or William saw him, but they knew he was working in the lab and best not be bothered in those moments. “Let me guess you did another name pun,” said Sherlock as he looked at the incredibly grumpy John. He noticed the disaster on the kitchen table and smiled, it was almost on par with what Sherlock did before the basement lab. “William, apologize to your dad and explain your problem.” Sherlock plopped down in his chair making the face he often did when listening to a client.

William leaned back and said, “I’m sorry dad, I know it wasn’t right to bite, but sometimes I hear things and just make my mouth slam shut and I know I should control myself but I forget and wait. I mean I’m sorry dad, I will try to do better.” William sighed and hugged his dad. 

“Apology accepted, and I will try to remember how you react to the puns in the future,” replied John, wrapping his arms around William.

William pealed himself away from his dad and grabbed the car and handed it to his Papa, who immediately started examining it. 

“Ah the internal mechanism broke, and it is welded shut so you can’t open it to repair it. I think I have a solution, go upstairs and change into a short sleeve shirt of natural fibers,” said Sherlock. Also bring down your box of model making supplies and sandpaper. 

“Thank you Papa!” Said William, he hugged his papa and ran up to his room. 

John looked at Sherlock, “Okay what’s your solution?” He watched as Sherlock dramatically got up and left the flat.

Sherlock came back up with a pair of gloves, a butane torch, and a flint striker, “Watch as we science our way to a solution.” Sherlock did a slightly dramatic wave almost looked like he was about to turn on the torch right there in the door way but he seemed to have change his mind for the better before he continued on to the kitchen. 

John sighed, but he quickly turned to smiles as he saw William and Sherlock proceeded to melt the seams, and taking apart the car. Sherlock showed William, how to screw the pullback motor back into place. John thought it all adorable to see William and Sherlock repair the car that was until, Sherlock taught William how to use the flint striker to light the torch and now John was terrified. “Sherlock, are you sure that is a good idea?”

“Yes, William is old enough to understand and practice safety. So of course it is a great idea,” replied Sherlock, as he taught William how to clean the metal before starting a weld. Sherlock looked on with great affection as William managed to make a very clean close of the vehicle and prove that it was back in playable condition. 

“Thank you Papa!” yelled William as he hugged his papa and ran back up to his room.

John had to smile at that, but turned to Sherlock who was looking more and more tired with each passing moment. “I love how you always make time for him, but you know he is going to keep asking for you to let him work with fire again, right.” 

“Damn,” said Sherlock as he tore his gloves off and flopped dramatically into bed. 

“Oh Sherlock, no lab clothes in bed,” reminded John.

Sherlock rolled off the bed dramatically and he got back up taking off clothes and heading to the shower. 


	13. The time when William was too busy playing with his Christmas presents to realize that his dads was having a silly moment.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While William is busy with Christmas presents, Untie Harry pulls a prank on his dads.
> 
> Inspired by this post:https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/611941863583350784/simplyclockwork-ithinkthereforiamfandom

Some time around William turning 6, John and his sibling, Harry, started to reconnect. The fact that their father finally died went a long way in distancing themselves from all the pain that separated them in the first place. It was awkward at first, but they found a way to make it work. John was amused at the fact that Harry did their best to ensure that John and Sherlock felt like Harry respected them as a family, even giving silly gifts like matching pajamas, at first it was matching patterns, the obvious matching Buffalo print, a couple years of different plaids, and eventually turning to getting sets that complimented each other. The woodland creature onesies where adorable, John was a hedgehog, Sherlock was a otter, and William was a fox.

But one year, Harry deviated from the usual and went with an raspberry pi computer for William, but continued with the pajamas for John and Sherlock. They knew that despite the fact that John and Sherlock were in a queer relationship that the pair did skip over cruising culture. Harry knew that lack of knowledge would make for a hilarious moment. They took a stab at it and assumed that Sherlock had bottom tendencies while John had some Top energy, they were cackling when they found the pajamas a few years back at a boutique owned by their friend Kate, back in San Francisco, so they decided to start playing the long game of getting them used to receiving pajama for Christmas and Harry insisting in taking a photo of them in the pajamas. So they finally had John and Sherlock, right how they want them.They giggled as they took the photo, they sent it to a group chat of theirs which had all of their queer friends who loved talking about the wild shit their siblings got into. Shortly after Harry was confused to hear a moaning sound. 

Sherlock quickly looked at his phone with furled eyebrows, the look of confusing was rather amusing. “Harry, I take it there is something you know that we don’t know.” The phone moaned again, Sherlock whispered to John, “Irene Adler seems to have gotten ahold of the photo we just took.”

“Wait you know Irene? When I travel for work to San Francisco, I always go to her wife’s shop, they sell pajamas, lounge wear, and other appealing kinds of clothing if you know what I mean. Kate owns the shop, while Irene is a somatic therapist who and they throw parties of a certain kind. They are a rather delightful couple, they foster queer teens from a local shelter and also let folks recovering from surgery crash at their place, they got a lovely victorian home,” replied Harry, rather confused by the rather hard to read faces of John and Sherlock.

“Irene just explained what the peach and eggplant mean, you really should of found one that had both egg plants and peaches, we tend to switch it up quite often,” said Sherlock.

Harry accidentally did a spit take of their hot chocolate, much to William’s displeasure. They immediately apologized to William for spraying him and his computer with cocoa.

Sherlock and John settled in on their respective seats, “well at least they are comfortable,” said Sherlock.

“We are definitely changing to a different set of pajamas before your parents and Mycroft come,” said John. “I mean we can never be sure about who knows what, and for all we know you parents or Mycroft knows what the eggplant and peaches mean.” He pat Harry on his shoulder, “It’s nice to know you still have a sense of humor, but we are so going to get you when you least expect it.” Suddenly a paper ball bounced off his head and he saw William giggling like a mad man while project that William built launched various items in the air.” He glared at Harry, “we are definitely going to return the favor when you least expect.” 

Harry nervously laughed as they returned their hot chocolate and made an attempt to ask Kate and Irene how they know John and Sherlock. 


	14. Picture Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fight on Picture Day leads to Sherlock and John learning a lot about their kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some bits of homophobia and casual transphobia that occurs in this chapter, but I didn't mark them off because skipping those bits means you skip a lot of important parts of the story. It's long but it does have a happy ending full of supportive families.
> 
> This post inspired the story was this ficlet by Kitten-Kin: https://kitten-kin.tumblr.com/post/190921293249/if-you-havent-already-done-55-then-can-you

John rolled over and looked at Sherlock, they both sighed, it was one of the most dreaded days of the year for the school year when it came to Rosie. It was school picture day, it was a day where the already rough situation that was getting her to school on time, was made infinitely harder by the attempt to get her to school absolutely perfect for the photo. It was just hard to get a picture of Rosie in most cases, she was never smiling in photos, no matter the event no matter and cute and pretty she looked in any of the absolutely gorgeous dresses her grandma got her. To this very day the only way you could get a picture of her smiling it had to be a candid one, so of course they had plenty of her laughing at various events, or smiling at competitions. Yet they never had a photo of her smiling that she posed for. John rubbed his face to feel a little more awake, “I can’t really wrap my head around why she can’t just do the photo.”

“School photos are stupid and rarely ever flattering, I too would scream if I ever had to take another one,” Sherlock laughed. didn’t really see the point to it, but John did remind him that the school photos were the ones in yearbooks, which made Sherlock sigh, because he knew that the school yearbooks have been proven to be an excellent source for proving some social structures that eventually leads to murder. Well, he hoped that Rosie never got involved in any murder or became friends with any murderers, but well if people love to pull school photos for media releases, he might as well make sure Rosie has some cute ones. He rolled out of bed, and the sun hadn’t even really risen yet, but he knew that if he was going to get this right, getting Rosie while she was still sleeping was essential. He made the point to keep a pristine set of her school uniform in their room and another set hidden in his lab, in past years Rosie had taken to ruining all her uniforms in the night leading to picture day. He went to the bathroom and grabbed a comb and a couple of hair elastics and bobby pins, He even put is own hair up because he didn’t want to accidentally get his own hair somehow stuck with Rosie’s because it has happened in the past when she put up a rather spectacular fight. “Okay onward into battle. John, I trust you are aware of your part in the plan,” said Sherlock as he popped back to their room to see that John was getting ready, the plan had to be fairly coordinated.

John smiled at Sherlock as he finished dressing up and picked up Rosie’s uniform, he nodded at Sherlock. 

Sherlock nodded back but sighed as he turned to go up the stairs to Rosie’s room. It wasn’t like Rosie was a bad kid, it was just some days, it was like some switch went off and she would suddenly be fighting tooth and nail to not do the thing. Like she didn’t like picture day, she was particularly frustrated on the days when they had physical education or dance class but not even all kinds of dance, it was the partnered dance that really got to her. She actually enjoyed going to her extracurricular dance classes. John and Sherlock couldn’t really figure it out, and it was getting a bit concerning because it had taken to escalation. She had in the past couple of weeks hit multiple boys in her class, and initially Sherlock thought maybe the boys started it by putting their hands on her, but multiple of the cam footage, showed her throwing punches after the boys yelled at her. He got up to her room, fortunately she was still asleep. He took a deep breath and managed to give her a pretty decent french braid with her asleep. She managed to wake up right as he was trying to put on the hair elastic, and she tried to twist out of his grip. Sherlock already figured that was going to happen, so prior to starting the braid, he tucked her sheet in rather tightly, which slowed down her ability to twist out of his grip. He finished putting the hair elastic in, just in time as she figured a way out of her blanket cocoon. 

John snuck up, he had Rosie’s uniform in hand, because he could hear that Rosie woke up andwas about to do a runner. It was a bit odd, but sometimes they were able to squeeze her into her polo and pinafore on days like this during the run, because she would have to raise her hands to open the door. So in that moment when the door finally gave, and her hands hadn’t quite gotten out of the position needed to open the door, given the Rosie was 7, she was quickly getting to the point where she would be too tall for that tactic. The door suddenly burst open and John swiftly pulled the polo over Rosie. He cursed, she pulled the runner sooner than earlier and was still in her pajamas. 

Rosie quickly tried to get out of the polo. She yelled and screamed and her dads decided to let her tire herself out before give it another; go especially because it was so early in the morning. She almost got to take the braid out when she suddenly heard.

“If you get ready for the school and get through picture day with no more problem, I will let you do the elephant toothpaste experiment again,” said Sherlock, knowing that was usually an incentive that always worked on her.

She paused and turned to Papa, “Okay, but I also want to do the colored flames one too.” Papa nodded in the affirmative.So she stopped struggling and let her dads lead her to the bathroom and kitchen so that she could do all she needed before getting ready to leave for school. She even allowed Papa to do her hair nicely and put a headband that was in her school plaid. They walked to school all together and her dads left for work. Rosie really liked to do experiments with her papa and she was going to do her best to make it through the day and give them a photo they would like; even if she hated the idea of the photo very, very much. She didn’t even want to smile in it.

Sherlock sighed and turned to John, “Well I have to go get some yeast, maybe she will make it this year.” 

John laughed, “That would take a miracle Sherlock, and you know it.” He waved good bye to Sherlock, to head to his shift at the hospital.

“Well one could hope,” replied Sherlock, as he headed to the grocery store, he wondered what else was needed at the flat, because well these days he did try to be responsible when it came to keeping food in the flat. Especially because there was a growing child there, and their fridge has been experiment free ever since the rebuilding of the flat; because before John finally decided to move back in he wanted more than anything to make the place was appealing as possible. So, of course, he put a lab in the basement and an office on the main floor, so that clients didn’t have to enter their home in order to seek help. Mrs. Hudson didn’t mind all the renovation since Sherlock was paying for the whole thing. Mainly because Mycroft who was in charge of ensuring Sherlock didn’t squander his inheritance finally let him have full access to his trust fund, which did seem to rack up an impressive amount of interest because he wasn’t able to access it all until recently. But now given that he had full access to his fund and took on more paying clients, things at Baker Street were rather comfortable. 

Rosie and her peers managed to make it through the group photo just fine, she even managed to crack a smile. Things just went down hill from there, it was time to take the individual photos and the teacher had them split into a girls line and a boys line, which was new. She hated whenever these splits happen because something in her gut just screamed that it wasn’t right. As she got closer to the back drop she paused, this year instead of the grey background, the girls line had this soft pink one not too far off the traditional grey, but the boys line had this light blue to black ombre with laser, significantly cooler. She raised her hand.

Ms. Davis, the teacher sighed, “Yes, Rosie, what is it?”

“Can we choose between the two backgrounds?” asked Rosie, hoping that the answer was yes, but knowing the answer would be no.

“No, Rosie, that’s a silly question, it would only lead to chaos,” said Ms. Davis.

Rosie took a deep breath and tried to wait patiently because she really wanted to argue, but the idea of doing some experiments with Papa stopped her. That was until those idiots Tyler and Ross spoke up.

“Hey Rosie, you’re a girl you should like girl stuff, take the picture and don’t forget to smile,” said Ross he laughed and the other kids laughed along.

Rosie grit her teeth, it was almost time for her photo, but the fact that someone just told her to smile only made the task of smiling significantly harder. But the desire to get a good photo for a chance to do dangerous science with her Papa was stronger.

“Rosie, you are always arguing with everyone over stuff that every one is just supposed to know. You’re a girl, you should just know how to like girl stuff.I bet you’re going to be a dyke, you got fag dads after all,” said Tyler, Ross laughed along with him.

Ms. Davis was much too busy to hear what was happening with the kids at the other end of her line. 

Rosie yelled, “Ms. Davis, Tyler is making fun of me for having two…”

“She can’t even defend herself, what a girl,” said Tyler.

Okay fuck it, thought Rosie, even though she didn’t swear much in her mind, it was serious. She hated when people told her what she could and couldn’t do just because she was a girl. She hates it even more when they drag he dads into it. She turned to Ross and Tyler and stepped up to them. “What did you say?”

“You’re just a girl,” said Tyler. “and you can’t even get that right. You’ll be nothi…”

Rosie punched Tyler to shut him up, her class turned around gasped. 

“Why did you do that?” yelled Tyler, clutching his nose.

“That’s my brother you dyke,” said Ross as he made a move for Rosie.

Rosie reared back and punched Ross in the face and he fell to the ground clutching his face and screaming.

“So what, you guys shouldn’t even be saying that. There are many ways to be a…” yelled Rosie.

“What have you done Rosamund Watson?” screamed Ms. Davis.

Rosie turned around, she hated whenever people called her by her full name, not even her dads called her by full name. They couldn’t even seem to say it without a twitch of uncomfortableness, it was like some relic of something unpleasant and she didn’t understand why. She just let out a frustrated cry as the teacher grabbed her by the shoulder and walked her straight to the headmaster’s office. She really wasn’t enjoying the fact that the teacher couldn’t even look at her.

“This is her last chance, she either goes for an evaluation or she is out of here. She gave one boy, a bloody nose, and the other, a black eye, and it’s picture day. Call her dads while I sort out the situation back with the other kids,” said Ms. Davis as she stomped back out the office. 

“Okay Rosie start from the beginning,” said Mr. Jacobson, the headmaster, “I want the whole story; before I call your fathers.”

Rosie leaned back and sighed, she stretched out on the chair, “It was the same stupid reason and you know it.” She pulled her knees up, and hugged them. “I’m don’t get it, like why were the backgrounds different for boys and for girls, and why couldn’t we just get a choice. And why can’t people just leave me alone?” She took a breath trying to stop tears from coming. “I know I shouldn’t hit people, but why do I always have to be the one changing when I don’t know, people can just not care about what girls are supposed to be like.”

Mr. Jacobson sighed, “I’m sorry, but you use your hands when you use your words, you know that is wrong.”

“Well, maybe you should use your power to actually do something about stopping them,” replied Rosie.

Mr. Jacobson froze with his mouth open, he actually couldn’t find an argument there, “You could’ve had Ms. Davis do something.”

“She’s too busy to notice when I tried to tell her, so I might as well address things myself,” replied Rosie. “I just want them to stop.”

Mr. Jacobson sighed, “Okay well I am going level with you, I will talk with Mrs. Davis, but you need to learn to control your temper.”

“Well, I think the other kids need to learn to how to not be a bunch of butts,” muttered Rosie.

Mr. Jacobson, raised an eyebrow as he dial the phone number of Rosie’s dads. “You can’t control others, but you can control yourself.” He sighed, “Don’t make that face you know it’s true.” The phone finally picked up. “Hello, Mr. Watson, its Mr. Jacobson from Oakwood School, there was an incident… again.”

“This is Sherlock, John is currently at work, I take it we have to come in again,” answer Sherlock. He sighed, he should’ve put off buying the yeast until after he picked her up for the day, he stuck it in the freezer. “I’ll come in right away, her dad is currently working at the clinic and will be unable to come in till time for his break.” He exited the flat and flagged down a taxi. He texted John about there being yet another incident. He sighed, and figured it was about time that they did this, he dialed the number that Ella, his therapist, had provided him. 

“Hello this is Dr. Elisa Ellison, pediatric psychiatrist,” answered Dr. Ellison.

“Hello, it’s Sherlock again, we’ve been talking for the past 2 months about my daughter,” said Sherlock.

“Ah yes, Sherlock, I have talked to both you and your partner about your 7 year old female with aggression issues and difficulty with social situations who experienced multiple adverse childhood events during infancy. I take it there was an another incident,” said Dr. Ellison. “I have an opening in 90 minutes, if you wish to bring her in right away.”

“That would be incredibly helpful,” replied Sherlock, he had a sigh of relief, they should have done this ages ago, but Dr. Ellison wanted to see Rosie, as close as possible to an explosive incident, that way it was easier for the child to understand the incident. The cab stopped in from of the school, and Sherlock got out. He took a deep sigh, and headed into the school; it was becoming to bit too much of a regular occurrence. He felt a little bad for his parents because they too had to do just as much visits for his behavior in primary school.

And it was odd, because until recently teachers would say that Rosie was a good kid and excellent student, but as she got older, these issues with fighting other kids began. Sherlock knew that Rosie was hitting that age where kids starts getting more of a personality and cliques beginning, but he couldn’t figure out why she had such a hard time fitting in with her peers. Sure she was a bit of a tomboy, and her interests were a bit odd for her age, but there are plenty of ways to be a person, and that was fine. He was just sure the other kids were thinking it wasn’t and that was the heart fo the problem. But there was also that nagging feeling that all the chaos in her early life and the fact that while it was hard to admit, John had bouts of neglectfulness both mentally and physically towards Rosie, but that was all solved eventually. He just knew that stuff like that was a psychosocial root for oppositional defiant disorder, and he knew that labels followed kids. He certainly knew the feeling, he even as a kid tried to get that as the label instead of the ones the doctors all settled on. He would’ve rather been feared as a high functioning sociopath, than pitied as an autistic person, well more Aspergers really, but he spent a lot of his life trying to groom that idea. Yet these days he was fine with the diagnosis and hadn’t even tried to convince people that he had antisocial personality disorder in years. Also much to his embarrassment he did receive quite the tongue lashing from one of his homeless network members when he tried to call himself a high functioning sociopath. That young man ended up doing quite well in the young adult shelter and last he heard the young man was finishing up his hours to start working as a psychologist. He reached the main office, and walked in, but not without taking a deep breath first.

“Hello again, Mr. Holmes, I really do wish we could be meeting under better circumstances,” said Mr. Jacobson, as he rose to shake hands with Sherlock who nodded in acknowledgmentbefore sitting down.

Rosie was still curled in on herself, taking deep breaths, and trying not to cry. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she heard Papa sit down next to her. 

Sherlock nodded in response, “I know you are sorry Rosie, and it is okay to be angry, but it is not, not, not okay to hit someone.”

“I know, but they wouldn’t stop, and the teacher wasn’t responding to me asking for help, and… I’ll stop, I know I should do better but argh… sometimes I just get so mad and no one seems to hear me in those moments and the people who can do something about it don’t seem to care, so I have to do something or else they will never learn,” said Rosie, the tears finally escaping her eyes. 

“Mr. Holmes, we have done this again and again, and I know there is nothing new I can say. But we need to do something, she’s a good student academic wise, but these outbursts are causing other kids harm and is a disruption to learning environment. This is her last chance, the teacher is asking that Rosie get an evaluation by a pediatric psychiatrist before she can come back to school,” said Mr. Jacobson.

Sherlock nodded, “Don’t worry, we do actually have a psychologist in mind, and she has an opening this afternoon, so we are going as soon as we are done here. I understand that this isn’t her first fight, but surely the fact that her peers are the ones who taunt her, has been taken into consideration. Do they face any punishment or are you just letting Rosie’s actions be the punishment?”

Mr. Jacobson paused and thought, finally saying, “I will be talking with Ms. Davis to see if any of the boys she has punched ever been talked to because of their behavior.”

“Please do, I am sure if Rosie saw the boys facing consequences for their words, she would be less likely to use her fists,” said Sherlock. “I believe we are done here, we do have to prepare to visit the psychiatrist.”

Mr. Jacobson nodded, “Yes, we are, I do hope we get to a point where Rosie can do better.”

“Well, I hope her peers can do better as well,” snapped Sherlock, quickly pulling Rosie out her chair. “Have a good day, I suppose?” And with that they exited.

“Am I in trouble?” asked Rosie, as she followed her Papa, “The boys did call you, Dad, and me all sorts of mean words for gay people.”

Sherlock paused and looked at Rosie, “I understand Rosie, but we can’t have you walloping every person who decides to parrot whatever bigoted dribble they hear in the world. If you did that, you would spend too much of your life fighting and not being a good person.”

“But it isn’t fair,” replied Rosie.

“I know it isn’t fair, and I hate that you have to shoulder that unfairness,” said Sherlock, “I wish you didn’t have to, but we need to work on how you react, because if you keep fighting like this, you are going to be worn out physically and emotionally.” He texted John, to say that they were going to meet them at Dr. Ellison’s office, but was going to grab so lunch first.

The two of them walked to a nearby cafe and had a quiet lunch, Sherlock knew that Rosie needed her silence for a little bit. They got into a cab and sat in silence for a little bit. Rosie was looking out of the window, “am I crazy, Papa?”

Sherlock turned to look at Rosie, he couldn’t see her face but he could tell that Rosie was carrying a great sadness in that moment. “No, you aren’t crazy, we are just going to get you a little help; to make it easier to cope with the world.”

“But I heard you say psychiatrist, only crazy people go to psychiatrists,” replied Rosie.

“Crazy is a very broad term, that people often will say is a bad thing, but it isn’t bad to be mentally ill either. And a lot of people you wouldn’t even think is crazy goes in for mental health care all the time. Both your dad I go to mental health providers, because we both had complicated lives and talking to a therapist helps make it easier to think about things in a way that makes it easier to function. We both even take medicine, it isn’t a magical fix, but it certainly makes it so that we are better able to take care of you. I know you might have a hard time at first, but I do hope you give it a try. Who knows maybe you’ll just find that it makes things easier to manage,” said Sherlock, as he looked at the window watching Rosie in the reflection, he could tell that she needed her space, so he gave it to her. “And it might even be a bit fun, for you get to do sessions without talking if you want; which I find a little enviable.”

Rosie laughed, she figured her dads weren’t that great at talking a long time ago. But she did feel like their actions did a lot in showing how they felt. Like Dad knew she didn’t like her sandwiches with crusts and preferred them cut into triangles and he did that every day without her asking; so that had to be something like love. And she never asked Papa if she could join him in experiments, because Papa just seemed to always ask right when she was about to ask, that had to mean something. They didn’t have to say they love her, for her to know that she is loved because she felt loved. They certainly had a lot of patience with her these days, she isn’t quite sure why she had become this way, but it kinda felt like a pebble in her shoe. Like when the shoe was loose the pebble was there, but she didn’t always feel it there. Now she is getting older and shoe actually fits, the pebble is making itself more known. And you know sometimes pebbles, make you want to just take off the shoe and wave it wildly in the air until you are sure the pebble is gone and put it back on your foot. She just wasn’t sure what exactly the pebble was. “Okay, I’ll try.” The cab stopped in front of what looked like a home, Rosie exited after her Papa promoted her to. Her dad was standing was standing on the steps of the house.

John stood on the stairs of Dr. Ellison office, waiting for his family. He was anxious because he was afraid to see what they would find. He didn’t want Rosie to suffer life long consequences because of that one year disaster after her mother died. But at the same time is did seem to start before that with her mother abandoning her. He really did think that him and Sherlock providing her all the love they possibly could give her would’ve been enough; but the recent outbursts seemed to say otherwise. He saw his family exit a cab and approach the steps to the office. He opened his arms, and Rosie sadly approached him and hugged, not saying anything. Hehugged her back, “I know you’re sorry, and we are going to see what we can do to make it easier on you.” And with that they entered the office, John thought it didn’t look too bad, it was definitely a waiting room but it was bright and full of natural light that filtered through some soft stainless windows. There were chairs of every type, some swings, and toys for kids. There were multiple aquariums most filled with moss balls, but one with a ton of fish. There was a couple of nooks in corners that were a bit more dark. He smiled as Rosie ran up to the fish, and started counting them and naming them. He watched as Rosie tried every possible seat available to the children looking on some way like Goldilocks and deciding which chair to use.

The door to the office opened and an older lady with wildly curly red hair and an outfit straight out of an Eileen Fisher catalogue which you know is pretty much the uniform of the well to do psychiatrist. Sherlock noticed that it was a color that hasn’t been made in a while, and noticed some unusual friction marks, it was almost like the marks one would find on the coveralls of someone who worked in carpentry, he couldn’t quite figure that out. Sherlock was also amused at how dramatically swishy the outfit was, he could always appreciate the drama a swishy coat could bring to things. Not that a psychiatrist should be dramatic. 

“Hello Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, it is nice to finally meet you. But it is especially nice to meet you Rosie!” Said Dr. Ellison, “I’m dr. Ellison, and I hope you can understand that I worked very hard for the title, so if you must come up with some nickname, the most loosey goosey you can get away with is, Doctor El. Any shorter makes me rather grumpy.” She gestured for them to come into her office. And gestured for the three of them to pick a seat. There was an assortment of chair and all along the walls there was toys and figurines, there was also a table that seemed to contain a sandbox and a couple pitchers of water. 

Rosie laughed, she found Dr. Ellison to be a bit weird, but as far as it went she was the first new grown up in her life this school year who was glad to see her. The teachers at her school weren’t that pleased otherwise the teachers at all her extracurriculars weren’t aware of any changes. 

“Rosie, is there anything that makes you grumpy or even maybe mad?” Asked Dr. Ellison. 

Rosie sighed, “I get mad when people tell me I can’t do things just because it is supposed to be something I am not supposed to do.”

Dr Ellison nodded, “Rosie, sometimes people tell others not to do a thing because it might hurt someone. Do you think you can tell me about a time when you felt that way? Or maybe you can tell me about why your dads had to pick you up early from school today?”

Rosie sighed and flopped off the beanbag she was occupying, and stood up as tall as possible, “I got in another fight. Two boys in my class made fun of me and my dads just because I spoke up about the stupid backgrounds for the photos. The girls had to sit in front of this plain pink one and the boys got to sit in front of this blue one with lasers. It was stupid why couldn’t we just have one background. Every time we have to do this splitting up, I get in a fight I don’t know why I do, I just have to because I just want to be able to pick; and people get stupid because they say I am picking wrong but the choice made just doesn’t feel right.” Rosie watched as Dr. Ellison wrote in her notebook.

“Can you tell me more about how they are splitting you all up when you get in fights?” Asked Dr Ellison. 

Rosie puffed up and crossed her arms, “they are splitting us up as boys and girls. I don’t know it feels wrong, kinda like a pebble in a shoe. Like is doesn’t bother me until it happens; and now it happens all the time and I can’t stand it.”

Dr. Ellison nodded, “Rosie, can you tell me about things that make you feel better or maybe what you do for fun?”

“I like going to fencing and taekwondo class, I always feel better afterwards. Dance class is fun too but we have been doing more partnered dances, so it hasn’t been that fun. Papa teaching me violin, it’s hard but I like it, I also play piano, my dad takes me to lessons and we are actually learning together. I think I want do drums someday. I also like playing football and rugby, but people keep saying I can’t do it because I am a girl. There are a lot of things people say I can’t do because I am girl. And I don’t know it makes me want to fight them. That’s the only time I want to fight, and like I can stop myself during fencing and taekwondo, because I will get my chance to prove them wrong. But in school or at the park, I don’t know what else to do because people don’t listen to my words,” replied Rosie.

“So just to be clear the only times you ever get into fights is when people tell you that you can’t do something because you are a girl,” said Dr. Ellison. She wrote more into her notebook.

“Yes,” replied Rosie and her dads both nodded in agreement, she looked around the room, “Doctor Ellison, what’s that for?” She pointed at the sandbox. 

“Oh, that’s what we’ll do next, but I was hoping to ask if your dads can leave the room for a bit and stay in the waiting room,” asked Dr. Ellison. She nodded when John and Sherlock left the room.

John and Sherlock settled in the waiting room, where there was mother and her child also waiting the kid was running all over the place and had heavily bandaged forearms. The mom was sighing as the child kept putting his face up to aquarium and loudly named them all. The kid appeared to be Rosie’s age, and was running around quite a bit, like he couldn’t quite find a comfortable spot, he grabbed the Rody horse, and stood on a chair.

“Philomena, don’t you dare jump off that chair,” snapped the mom.

“Mom, don’t be silly I don’t see anyone here named Philomena,” and with that the kid jumped with the Rody between his legs, which caused him to go bouncing across the room with a lack of control. John definitely noticed that the kid, had a look of panic. 

Eventually the kid crashed into Sherlock, and he managed to land across his lap who looked at the kid with a rather amused look on his face. “Who was she yelling at then,” he asked as he helped the kid stand up in a much more acceptable configuration.

“Phineas, I mean Phineas, you know I meant Phineas, but these things take time,” replied his mother. “Can you try to have some patience with us, this adjustment takes time.”

“Moooom, we have been doing this since year 1, and now I am year 3,” The child flinched and wiggled his nose a bit. “I’m Phineas! FIN! EE!!! ES!!! Or you can go with Finny. I… I… I… mean Dr. El says we could just avoid these scenarios,” he waved his heavily bandaged arms around. “if you at least called me by my name.” He sighed and flopped back over the rody horse and bounced in place a little bit.

Sherlock then realized that it was likely that the child was transgender, and his family struggled to accept him. Sherlock could never really understand families like that, wherever he ran away to or went to rehab, there was always trans people, and many of them were quite nice to him. Some of them even help him with cases. He feels a bit judgmental of such families, because he honestly thought that these families could’ve just saved themselves a lot of trouble and heart ache if they just didn’t give a shit and actually used their kids proper names and pronouns. He was concerned about the kid because he realized that the bandage probably meant that the child had recently attempted some rather extreme forms of self harm. 

Back in Dr. Ellison’s office, Rosie was picking some toys off the shelf, because Dr. Ellison told her to pick some toys, they were going to create a little world where Rosie was going to be in charge. 

“Okay Rosie, I want you to pick a main character,” said Dr. Ellison. 

Rosie placed all the toys in front of her, she picked a blond figurine with short hair, she felt it looked closest to what she wished she could look like, she very much wish she could get a hair cut, and every time Papa took her for a hair cut, she had been slowly convincing him to let her cut it shorter and shorter in hopes of one day getting the hair she felt fit her best. 

Dr. Ellison noticed Rosie’s choice because clearly in the pile of toys Rosie picked up, there were quite a few that looked closer to Rosie’s appearance, but she did notice that this might be going in a different direction that the one her fathers feared. “What’s the name of your character,” but Rosie didn’t answer with anymore than a shoulder shrug. “Rosie, can you show me a situation that makes your main character angry or would get in a fight.”

Rosie nodded, she thought about it rather hard. She split all the different piles of “boy” figures and “girl” figures. She tried to decide which pile the character would go into. “The main character is at school and it is time for recess and the teacher asked them to line up between girls and boys.” She made it look like the character couldn’t decide, so she made the character go into the boys line. She noticed Dr. Ellison nod.

“Why would this make your character angry?” asked the doctor.

Rosie made some of the “boy” characters turn around to face the main character, “you don’t belong here, you are supposed to be in the other line.” She made the main character walk slowly to the “girls” line. “You don’t belong here either.” She made the main character try to rejoin the “boys” line and turned one fo the figures turn around to face the main character. “I told you that this wasn’t your line.” And she then made the main character knock down the one who told her couldn’t be in the line.Rosie proceeded to bury the main character under the sand. She looked at Dr. Ellison, and took a deep breath. “I think I have a secret, but I don’t know if I should tell anyone.”

Dr. Ellison nodded, “You know Rosie, I am not allowed to repeat anything that happens here unless I have to. But I only have to if someone is hurting you or you are going to hurt yourself or others. So anything you have to say here, I can almost quite certainly guarantee, is only going to stay here. And if you ever want to share your secret I am here to help, okay.”

Rosie nodded and smiled at Dr. Ellison. “I think I am like my main character. When we played house during recess I used to play the dad, I miss that. One of the boys in class decided he wanted to play house, and my friends made me the doggie instead.” Rosie sighed and flopped into one of the beanbags, “I don’t know.”

Dr. Ellison nodded, “Rosie, what does your main character need in order for them to no longer have to be buried?”

Rosie went back to the sand box, took the figure out and placed it in the “boys” line, “I belong here.” She turned one of the characters in the line, to face the main character, “Okay.” She smiled.

“So you think the main character would be able to come out of hiding if people were okay with them being where they feel like they belong?” asked Dr. Ellison. She smiled at Rosie, the child seemed to be rather emotionally aware, which was amusing because during the phone consults it seemed like she was being raised by fathers who both seemed to have difficulties with expressing emotions. But it did seem like from the self reported info, Rosie had a large network of people who cared for her, and that probably played a factor into her emotional awareness.

“Yup,” replied Rosie, “I think he would be much happier if he was allowed to be who he was and no one cared about it.”

“Okay Rosie, do you feel like the same applies to you?” said Dr. Ellison.

Rosie nodded, “But I think it will get me in trouble.”

Dr. Ellison frowned, “And why do you think that?”

Rosie sighed, “I already get in trouble for fighting kids who say mean things to me and tell me that I cannot do things because I am a girl, but I am not a girl. I’m a uh…” Rosie’s voice suddenly became rather small, “a boy; I think I feel like a boy. Why should I believe that things will be okay if I was just tell people that I am not a girl.” He curled in on himself and took another deep breath, “I don’t even think I can be tough enough because I am already tired of fighting and being angry. I wish that people would just leave me alone.”

“Rosie, and do feel free to tell me a name you want me to use with you. Trust me, there are many ways of being a boy just as there are many ways of being a girl. You don’t have to be tough or fight everyone just to prove you are a boy, you are a boy because you say you are a boy. Do you think it would be possible to tell a person that your weren’t a girl and be supported?

Rosie sighed, “I don’t know.” 

Dr. Ellison looked at Rosie and smiled, “Well you don’t have to do anything yet, but I think that it would be worth exploring how it would feel to tell people that you aren’t a girl. I know it can be hard, but maybe we can talk with your dads to see if maybe for at least outside of school, you can try navigating things more like the boy you are.” 

“Um… I am not sure yet, but I think I will eventually want to try. Does that mean I will see you again?” asked Rosie as he uncurled and rolled himself out of the beanbag he was occupying. 

“Yes, we can keep meeting if that is what you want,” replied Dr. Ellison.

“Yes, I would very much like that,”said Rosie as he started to ponder things like which name he would use or if things would even be okay, but he felt like that was a silly thought because he knew his dads loved him very much, and maybe at least they would be okay with it.

“Well, let’s call your dads back in, we’ll just tell them that things went fine, and after that I want you to go back into the waiting room while I talk to your dads. Don’t worry it isn’t about you being a boy, it is just that I want to talk with them about why they brought you in,” said Dr. Ellison. She got up to open the door only to be surprised by a rather amusing scene in waiting room between Rosie’s dads and one of the moms of her other clients. 

“Philomena, you can’t just go off with every adult who actually calls you by your name,” cried out the mother.

“His name is Phineas, it really isn’t that hard!” cried out Sherlock, as he has to deal with Phineas just looking over his shoulder looking at his phone screen. 

“Whoa is that a crime scene, why does the body look so fresh but it has carrion beetles and rove beetles?” asked Phineas; as he tried to get a closer look. “Those usually come at a much later stage of decomposition.”

“That is a rather useful observation Phineas, thank you,” replied Sherlock, he smiled when Phineas’ face broke into a rather large smile, showing off a rather impressive amount of loose teeth. Sherlock turned to Phineas’ mom, “Using his name is going to go a long way in making sure he is happy and confident, trust me I’ve seen a lot of trouble come from transgender folks whose family can’t provide them with the basic dignity of using their proper names and pronouns.”

John was holding Sherlock’s arm because Sherlock was always a bit flail-y and wiggly and long when it came to arguing on behalf of kids. “I mean yeah, it can be hard, I still occasionally use the wrong pronouns for my sibling, in my head, but I make every effort to not say it out loud.”

Rosie pulled on Dr. Ellison’s sleeve, and she whispered “I think I would like to tell them now, I still don’t know have a new name yet.”

Dr. Ellison nodded, and interrupted the whole exchange. “Phineas, we need Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson back, and I will be with you afterwards okay.”

Sherlock and John entered the office and Rosie sat between the two of them, he hooked his arms around his dads. Rosie’s dads smiled at Rosie before looking at Dr. Ellison.

“Sherlock and John, I am glad to say that your earlier worries, are nothing you have to be concerned about, the behavior of concern is actually related to something else, and when we work with the greater issue, I believe the worrisome behavior will greatly reduce. And of course, we’ll give your child the emotional tools to deal with others, things will turn for the better,” said Dr. Ellison as she nodded and turned to Rosie with a smile. Rosie’s dads both had a sigh of relief. “Otherwise you have bright child who has a rather fantastic level of self awareness for someone her age and experience.” She tilted her head to potentially give Rosie and opportunity to talk.

Rosie took a deep breath and her dads both turned to look at him, “Papa, Dad, I always get in fights because people tell me I don’t belong or I can’t do things I like because I am supposed to act like a girl. But I don’t feel like I’m a girl, it just doesn’t fit right and I really can’t stand it. I think I’m a boy.” He took another deep breath but got hit with the overwhelming urge to cry, so he let the tears come.

Both John and Sherlock stare at Rosie, with a look of surprise. John spoke first, “It’s all fine, Ro… um do you have a name you want us to use?” He unhooked his arm from Rosie’s to pull her into a side hug, that Rosie leaned into.

“I haven’t picked one yet, I’m still trying to figure out what works or even how I want to do this,” said Rosie. “I mean it is only now where I finally have words to what I have been feeling.”

“How about we just start by calling you Ro? You can take your time picking your name, but I think it would be a good idea to tell your school after you settle on a name that feels right for you,” asked Sherlock, as he also wrapped his arm around Ro, in a side hug.

Ro nodded, “I think that will be fine, but I don’t think I want it to be my name.” He looked at Dr. Ellison for an answer.

“Ro, it’s okay you don’t need to have all the answers right away. You can take as much time as you need to do this. You can obviously see that your dads are fine with all of this and I think they will very much be interested in helping you with everything you need for your journey,” said Dr. Ellison as she smiled. She always found it a relief to deal with parents who were accepting, she wished more parents were like that. She did look forward to working more with Ro and her dads because they seemed to be a breath of fresh air after dealing with frustrating parents all day. She could tell from the consults that Sherlock and John had every intention of doing whatever it took to make Ro have a shot at a happy and content life. 

Ro and his dads nodded as they took in Dr. Ellison’s answer. Sherlock paused as he thought what to say, “What exactly goes into transition for someone Ro’s age?

“For someone Ro’s age we mainly begin with a social transition medical intervention doesn’t start until a child starts showing signs of puberty. So basically Ro should get a more masculine haircut and clothes, use the boys restroom when he is ready. Talk with the school to ensure that they too follow up with referring to Ro by his proper name and pronouns. As far as it goes that’s it,” replied Dr. Ellison. “The medical intervention side of things tends to start around age 12 on average but again it all depends on when Ro will hit puberty.”

Ro turned to his dads, “Can we start with the uniform, I absolutely hate, hate, hate, hate, hate that we have to wait till winter for us to wear pants again. Please papa and daddy, can we try to get that done as soon as possible.”

“Well, we do have to tell the teachers about the evaluation,” said John with a shrug. I am sure it would be a more than appropriate time to ask about the uniform issue.

Ro smiled at his dads and they both gave him a full hug. Ro was rather fond of hugs, he paused, “Daddy, Papa, will this mean I have to give up hugs?”

Sherlock frowned at the question and pulled Ro in for a tighter hug, “Ro, you don’t have to give up liking hugs just because you’re a boy. Don’t let toxic masculinity hold you down.” He shot a look at John.

John joined in once again for hugging his family, “Yes Ro, there are plenty of way to be a boy, and we will do our best to give you the space to figure it out.” 

Ro nodded again and smiled at his dads, John and Sherlock absolutely loved how suddenly Ro’s smile was suddenly making a constant appearance, and they hoped that the smile would take a much more regular appearance, now that Ro knew more about himself.

“Okay Ro, can you go to the waiting room while I talk to your dads,” asked Dr. Ellison.

Ro smiled and left the room, closing the door behind him. He was immediately approached by a boy who hopped by on a Rody horse.

“Hey I’m Phineas, you got really cool dads.” He said as he bounced in place. 

“I’m Ro, and I have to admit you are right,” replied Ro, smiling about just how easy that conversation went. 

“Wanna play hide and seek?” asked Phineas, who waited for Ro to respond with a nod. “Tag you’re it!” he yelled as he poked Ro in the arm. Which led to them running wild around the waiting room.

Mean while in the office, Dr. Ellison looked at John and Sherlock, “Sherlock, John, how was it to hear that about your son? I also must admit your response was absolutely wonderful, but is that really how you feel.”

They both sat in silence before John finally spoke, “I didn’t see it coming, but you know what if it means she… I mean him… I am going to still have to get used to that. But if it means he doesn’t have oppositional defiant disorder I am perfectly fine with the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. I wasted a lot of my life because of homophobic bullshit and trans… is transphobia a word? Well, I guess being more open about how people experience gender improved things with my sibling. I will admit I am far too happy to hear gender dysphoria, because honestly I don’t think Sherlock and I would be very good at raising a kid with ODD because to be honest we are both adrenaline junkies, and that probably isn’t the best parenting combo.” 

Sherlock nodded, “And honestly I also didn’t see it coming, but looking back some things make a lot more sense when you see it through the lens of Ro being a boy. It must’ve been very hard to be existing in the wrong social roles. But I do agree with John, if you think Ro’s troubles can be fixed by him transitioning, I am all for it. I just want him to be happy. I do have to admit, I am not sure how we can save him from all the transphobia out there. I spent a lot of time in rehab and living on the streets in my twenties, and honestly I think it was only the trans folks who could stand me. They all had similar stories of facing rejection, and I don’t want that for Ro. So while I was caught off guard I don’t want her… damn I mean him, having any doubt that we love him.”

Dr. Ellison smiled, “Yes between the session we just had and his school behavior reports, I firmly believe that socially transitioning him will do wonders for keeping him out of fights and arguments with teachers. Since every single report I was given had something about being separated by gender as the root of the fight. Socially transitioning him would remove the trigger for his outbursts, which means he will no longer have the outbursts as long as we manage how he can handle people treating him negatively.” 

John and Sherlock nodded as they took in Dr. Ellison’s words. 

“Otherwise, I think you will be in for some positive changes. I will mail you more info about programs for you and Ro, but yes start with the uniform, and if you think he is ready, you can try a more androgynous hair cut for Ro until he picks a name and gets socially transitioned at school. 

___________________________________________________________________________________

One year later, it was yet another picture day, a lot had changed for John and Sherlock and their son William. William had a new name, new school, and new friends. He told his dads quite often how happy he was in his new school, and they were glad to see that he hadn’t gotten in a fight ever since he came out. Sure there was some hiccups with his previous school but John and Sherlock tried their best to be the ones to settle the issue since most of the trouble was coming from administrators. And when it was finally clear that Oakwood wasn’t going to budge on providing William with a more supportive environment, Mycroft manage to get William a spot at a school that had a much better track record of working with kids like William. It had been a rather long year, but it came with so many positive changes. One that John noticed the most was the fact that William finally had plenty of photos where he was actually smiling. 

Sherlock rolled out of bed, unsure of what this picture day will bring, but he had a perfectly pressed uniform ready for William. He snuck up to William’s room, just in case he had to get a jump start for William’s appearance. Sherlock gently opened the room only to be greeted by a perfectly dressed William who was practicing different smiles in his mirror. Sherlock smiled, he knew this year John and him would finally get a decent school photo out of William. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I am pretty sure that a pediatric assessment for gender dysphoria would be much longer, but I do have to deal with a lot of psychiatrist who apparently figure out a kid's transness immediately after they start doing sand tray therapy because one of the tell tale signs is burying the main figure after a moment of distress. So yup, that's where this was all coming from.


	15. The time William got them banned from the Tesco.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock just found out their kid is trans, he still doesn’t have a name yet, but they call him Ro. They feel a terrible about not seeing Ro’s outbursts as a sign, but some things are starting to make sense. And some of those things include biting an obnoxious woman at the supermarket while trying to prepare for a shelter in place order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically I am on what I think is day 12 of shelter in place and while I am working from home these days. I am actually rather busy, but the plot bunnies come at random times and actually reminds me to not work 24/7.

Sherlock shook John awake, “I just remembered something Ro did that should’ve tipped us off on this whole trans thing.” He waited for John to catch up.

John rubbed his face, “what sherlock?”

“I just remembered something Ro did that should’ve tipped us off on the whole trans thing, you know I hate repeating myself,” replied Sherlock as he looked at John.

“Okay what was it?” Asked John, curious about what Sherlock has to say on the matter because the two of them were still digesting the fact that Ro came out to them. And despite them being happy to find out that their initial fears weren’t what was happening. They were concerned about the fact that Ro was miserable for so long and they didn’t see it.

“Remember how we’re banned from the Tesco up the street,” said Sherlock. He was rather amused at John as he glared at Sherlock.

“Yes, and it is bloody inconvenient that we were banned it was the closest grocery store and we were banned during the bloody quarantine. We had to get delivery because we couldn’t just sent out Mrs. Hudson and your brother was too busy to work his magic. And your homeless network got shelter in placed, so there wasn’t any quick way to get groceries. You know what, you never told me what you got us banned,” said John. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, “Okay Sherlock, what does that have to do with Ro being trans?”

Sherlock laughed, “I wasn’t who got us banned, it was Ro.”

John raised an eyebrow at Sherlock, “he was five at the time, what could a five year old do that would get you banned from a Tesco?”

“Well biting someone during a time of a pandemic, especially for a disease that was transmitted through spit is especially frowned upon. He bit some posh mum who tried to start a conversation with me, that women was obnoxious and I guess she thought given my coat, my being a bit overwhelmed by the situation at the time, and Ro’s Patagonia jacket, made her think that I was a posh parent like her forced to do the groceries for the first time in forever. Well she had three very loud boys in tow with her,” said Sherlock as he leaned back onto his pillow, and stretching out a little bit.

John rolled in a big closer to Sherlock because he knew that was usually Sherlock’s signal for cuddle me. He settled in as Sherlock wrapped his arms around John. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well the posh mum decided to talk about how I was lucky to have a girl because a girl doesn’t go around touching everything and how she had a hard time managing her boys,” said Sherlock as he pulled John in closer. “Well I wasn’t paying attention to the mum, but I guess Ro did. So he snuck up to mum and when she tried to tell Ro that he was pretty and had lovely hair, she tried to touch Ro. And Ro jumped up and bit the woman’s hand so hard that she got a bruise. The woman yelled loudly, and I kept trying to tell the employees that she tried to touch my kid, but to them it didn’t matter, so they banned us.” He sighed, “that really should’ve stuck out to me before all of this.”

John laughed a little too loudly for the time of the night, but he kissed Sherlock on the cheek. “Well we both seemed to have missed the fact that all of Ro’s fights started off because of something involving other people’s perception of him and gender.” He pulled Sherlock in even closer, “no one ever expects to have a trans kid so it is probably very easy to not see things like that. But all that matters is that he is getting the support he needs.”

Sherlock nodded, “I’m thinking about taking Ro to the barber tomorrow after we have a talk with the school about the uniform situation. I figure it will make a good first step in the socially transitioning him.”

John smiled, “and I’ll invite Harry over for dinner, I think it would be good to have Ro talk with Harry; just to see that there are other trans and gender non conforming folks in the family.”

“That would be good,” replied Sherlock, he smiled, “can I take him shopping this weekend for a whole new wardrobe? I know how you feel about clothes shopping but I am more than happy to take Ro to the shops.”

“That sounds good, but I definitely want to tag along, we cannot have Ro looking like he tumbled out of a fashion magazine,” laughed John. “Go back to bed, we have a long day tomorrow.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, “but Jawn... when you look good you feel good.”

“Go back to sleep, Sherlock,” huffed John.

“Fine, but I’m still going to make sure he doesn’t just leave with jumpers and jeans,” replied Sherlock as he closed his eyes and went back to sleep wrapped around John.


	16. William Watson Wants Kids Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William has a revelation, and his dads are happy to help.

It was the morning after his sixteenth birthday, and William woke up and smiled at Phineas, “I just had the dumbest dream, we were grown up and we had an awesome apartment and we had the silliest group of kids who called us papa and daddy.” William awkwardly shifted, “I know my dads and I made so much effort to go on blockers and all that stuff but I think I am going to want to risk it if I have some eggs put away.”

Phineas was still a bit groggy, “what?”

“I want to try producing genetic material to reproduce in the future,” replied William. “Also I hear my dads preparing breakfast, so maybe you need to sneak out the window again?” He kissed Phineas, “I love you but I am not sure how my dads would react to you spending the night without permission especially because of what we tried to do last night.” He giggled, “I’m sure the process of getting the eggs might make me more dysphoric but I think it worthwhile.” 

Phineas smiled at William, “yeah I think you could make a great dad in the future; but adoption is totally an option.” 

William smiled and kissed Phineas again, “you would too, but you know I got a record and that might make me ineligible for adoption. So you know I might as well get the eggs harvested so that I don’t have to rely on a system that might find me unsuitable for kids.”

“I guess but like we’re 16; I think I want a few more years before kids,” said Phineas.

“Don’t be daft, Finny, of course, I want to finish school first,” said William playfully shoving Phineas. 

Phineas landed on the floor with a bit of a squawk. He gave William one last kiss before sneaking out William’s window. He was doing fine, but he passed a window. William’s dads just happened to be sipping tea and looking out of it at that moment. He froze, not quite sure what to do. He considered jumping off the ledge but it was still too far of a jump to land safely even if he did a bit of a tuck and roll at the end of it all. 

John opened the window, “Phineas, we aren’t mad at you, but please get your ass in here before you fall, that would just devastate William.” He offered a hand to pull William through the window, which thankfully Phineas took. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“You know what Mr. Watson, I am going to have to take you up on the offer,” replied Phineas with a rather awkward smile. He sat at the table which already had four plates set. “Oh.”

“You know Finny, we would’ve let you stay the night and we would’ve been okay with leaving you two alone,” said Sherlock. “I mean we can’t stop you teens from doing all those urges of transport, but we also don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks. Next time just put a stick a blank post it on the door, and we’ll just stay away until William calls.”

Phineas laughed, “Er *squawk*… this is an awkward conversation, but um… thanks… also um… *squawk* nothing happened last night.”

John and Sherlock stared at Phineas but both took a breath of relief. They were really trying to raise William to not be ashamed of perfectly normal things, but that still didn’t make this conversation any easier. They all ate in silence until they heard William descending the steps.

William stared at Phineas and his dads eating breakfast, he wasn’t quite sure how to address it. “Oh… um… sorry?” He awkwardly shifted back and forth on his feet giving them a slight smile.

“William it’s okay, we aren’t mad, and Finny told us nothing happened last night, but please don’t let Finny sneak into the house, we can’t have him falling off the building. Believe me when I say the aftermath isn’t pleasant,” said Sherlock.

John sputtered into his tea and started coughing, “Sherlock is definitely right on that one.”

“Wait what?” said William and Finny at the same time.

“Don’t worry William, I am sure the two of you have enough sense to avoid a major fall okay,” said John. “Now please sit and eat before the eggs go cold.”

William nodded and promptly started eating. Half way through a bite he paused and looked at his dads, “I think I want to have kids in the future.”

His dads stared at William before Sherlock got up and left the table, he started rummaging through his drawers. “William, that’s a big decision, how do you want kids?”

“I think I want to try getting some eggs frozen, I am willing to deal with the risks. But I’ll be sorry about wasting your time on the hormone blockers,” replied William. “I think my record might stop me from getting approved for adoption.”

Sherlock placed a folder in front of William, “I knew you might consider this, so here is all the research on fertility preservation for trans youth who were on blockers. I also know a doctor who is willing to work with us, but we are going to have to go across the pond to San Francisco to see him. I also admit he is a bit of a character, but I think you have to be one if you were to survive as my roommate in my youth and 20’s. The name is Dr. Victor Trevor, he was my roommate for the tail end of secondary school and my roommate at college. I think he might’ve considered me something of a friend, but I was terrible at the idea of friendship until I was a bit older. But anyways, he already knows about our situation and is more than happy to help.” 

A couple of months later, it was the start of the summer holidays, and William and his dads were on a plane to San Francisco. It was a long flight, but at least it wasn’t that boring and they were in First Class. Sherlock even solved a case for the airline in the past, and the airline bumped up their seats as a surprise. Sherlock managed to solve a case of corporate espionage during the flight, which was funny because at one point it ended with John and some officer who happened to be on the flight tackling the man responsible because he punched Sherlock. And during the commotion, William managed to pick up the man’s laptop, and point out all the data discrepancies, and some key emails as evidence. William missed computers and knew he wasn’t technically allowed to touch one until he was 18, but who cares because they were over international waters, who was going to report him for breaking the rules in place for his release from juvenile detention, plus it solved a crime. Sherlock had to pretend that he solved it, for the court record, but he promised William a smartphone while in the US and he was thrilled by that. 

Dr. Trevor did tell his parents that this was going to be a multi month process and that William was going to need a ton of support, because he was about to be experiencing a whole bunch of different and new hormones.So Phineas was going to come over after he spent some time with his parents. Untie Harry was also going to come as well since they had the option to work at any office of the company, and the main headquarters from the CRM firm that they worked for was located in San Francisco. William was pretty sure that he was going to have all the support he needed. Also it was June in San Francisco, Pride was definitely going to be a thing. He was already connected to a queer, trans youth group in SF, so he was pretty sure he was going to have an in. Also his dads picked an AirBNB in the Castro, so that they were already in the gayborhood. 

They spent the first couple of days doing tourist things and meeting up with various people involved with trans youth programming in the city. Dr. Trevor was rather busy at the moment since it was the ideal time for kids to seek treatment. John and Sherlock had dinner with Dr. Trevor while William was attending a youth support group one night. They weren’t too worried because they were only 4 blocks away from each other and William was certainly old enough to navigate his way home. They met up at a small Thai restaurant in the Castro that had two floors, they were in a quiet corner making their way through various dishes occasionally looking outside to watch the F-Line roll in. 

Dr. Trevor was short and wore a leather jacket and high shine boots, John asked he drove a motorcycle and Dr. Trevor just laughed and pointed at the black Labrador-terrier that was with him. “This is my seizure response dog, ‘Gloria the 3rd this is the grand puppy of Gloria, the dog I had when I was roommates with Sherlock. I always felt bad because all of my dogs were trained to get help if a seizure went on too long, it took Sherlock getting bitten twice before he knew that the only reason my dog would try to get his attention was if I was having a seizure that wasn’t stopping. So no, not at all I don’t ride motorcycles but I can tell you what else I ride.” He said with a wink. He had a sparse beard that looked like it would belong to someone younger, but it was well groomed despite it being better off gone. 

“Yeah we both got transferred into Harrow for the last two years of school. I came from Mayfield, my parents somehow got me transferred in because while my grades were fantastic; I obviously didn’t belong in an all girl school. I have to be amazed that it somehow worked out. Sherlock transferred in because despite him blowing up multiple labs and his parents paying for the repairs, sometimes the school can’t ignore if you blow up the car of a family more powerful than yours,” added Dr. Trevor. “I liked to have thought of us to be friends, but his mind was a bit like a sieve when it came to information he found useless.”

“To be fair I never did an explosion on purpose, and the final accident wasn’t even my fault. A peer decided to change the angle of my rocket mid competition. Also the family was glad to find out their car wasn’t bomb proof despite them being told it was,” replied Sherlock. He took a sip of his Thai tea and stared at Dr. Trevor for a few seconds. “I never was good at friends or realizing people actually liked me, so I am sorry that I made you feel like you were forgettable. Also you’re trans?”

“You didn’t know. Jesus Christ in a Cracker, you helped me recover from top surgery! We did a summer semester at UC Berkeley so that I could get top surgery without my parent’s knowledge. You stripped the lines for me and instead of disposing of the blood right away you mounted it on slides to write down your observations of post surgical discharge into the bulbs. I mean two years at Harrow and four years at Oxford, and you never knew I was trans. We shared a bathroom that entire time. How do you think you managed to get a semi private bathroom that whole time? The schools or maybe my parents didn’t want me in the “men’s showers,” snapped Dr. Trevor. “But maybe I should be glad you never noticed because you were constantly blurting out people’s secrets… unless the situation called for you to just start wailing on a dude.” He turned to a very confused John. “He didn’t think that the school was going to do a thing about certain students being predators so he just sucker punched the dudes and walked calmly away. Eventually all the girls figured out what he was doing and they loved him for it; they tried really hard to encourage their boyfriends to stop beating and berating him.”

“And here you are just spilling all the info of what it was like to know me when I was younger,” sighed Sherlock. “Still I am glad that one person had fond memories of me.” 

“Yeah you were at times infuriating but you kept things interesting most of the time,” replied Dr. Trevor.

“I’m sorry for how things ended,” replied Sherlock.

“Oh, you remember that?” Dr. Trevor said softly. He looked down and ate a couple of bites. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You were having a seizure emergency and I was too high to get you help even though your dog kept trying to get me to help,” replied Sherlock. “It was my fault that you were in the hospital for so long; and why the people who responded was animal control instead of an ambulance. “My brother told me that Gloria had to be put down for that.” 

“Oh… nah Gloria lived for long after the incident; I trained my second service dog while she was still alive. I am pretty sure he knew you were more attached to the dog than me, and he wanted you to stay in rehab. Also by that time, I told my parents I was planning to go to the states for residency, so that’s why they yelled at you and said I didn’t want to see you again, that time you tried to visit me post rehab,” replied Dr. Trevor.

Sherlock lit up, “ so I didn’t get your dog killed?” 

“Nope, Gloria lived long enough that I had to retire her from being my seizure response dog. If there was anything you had to apologize it was the time you dismantled all the electronics in the flat because you were convinced that your brother was spying on us. Like that was just not cool, you didn’t even find anything,” replied Dr. Trevor.

“Oh that’s because I have come to learn that he doesn’t hide his devices that way,” said Sherlock with a shrug.

“Yeah I have found them in books, skulls, and boxes of pasta. I think he thinks electronics are too obvious. It gets annoying because for years all the stuffies he gave William had listening and tracking devices. He even tried to put a gps device in our wedding rings,” added John, before taking a drink.

“Fucking hell, Mikey was actually capable of what you were freaking out about, well in that case no need to apologize. He was a bit fucked up. Did you know he blocked his boss from being included in the AIDS quilt? Rudy was this great elder queer who definitely came out older in life but he had a government job so like being in the closet made sense, I don’t know how he put up with Mikey,” said Dr. Trevor. “I…” he stopped talking when he saw Sherlock’s demeanor turn sad.

“I was always told that Uncle Rudy died of toxoplasmosis, which made sense because he had so many cats,” replied Sherlock. He shifted uncomfortably, “well I guess that explains why Mycroft was so invested in thwarting any of my early attempts at dating. He kept telling me it was bad for my career, and that there was no room for advancement for openly queer folks in science.” 

“And probably why he was always thwarting your attempts at actually joining theater too,” said Dr. Trevor. “But fucking hell, he was relentless in making sure there was no public acknowledgement of Rudy being seroconverted. Like people just gave up after a while and I feel awful because he was just so lovely and people weren’t given a proper chance to memorialize him. How is he about William?”

Sherlock sighed, “He seems to be okay with William being trans and gay; but he refuses to interfer with his paperwork becuase he thinks William needs to experience some form of striff for being trans. I don’t get it, William already has to navigate the world as a trans person, and if changing a little letter on his documents can save him from the fact that he is always waiting for the next wave of dysphoria caused by someone looking at the papers but not at him. I would change it in a heartbeat. But at the same time he is the reason why we will be able to do this procedure and get the tissue back into the country. He is having us fly back via private plane and we will be taking pit stops to refresh the liquid nitrogen to ensure that the tissue remains at -120F. So are you absolutely sure about this process? I mean the most eggs I saw that this procedure made was 40 total. And from what I read about IVF, that was the amount of eggs it took to produce one child.”

Dr. Trevor smiled, he liked that Sherlock had seemed to have read about his work. “The ovary grafting has been happening for years now, and we are already seeing the first generation of babies being produced by this process. There is even a set of twins made with eggs that were harvested 15 years ago. I am going to be honest with you, there are no guarantees but things look good. The fact remains that I suggest he gets no bottom surgery until after he is done giving birth. Otherwise, I am going to go over the risks again when I meet him.” 

John and Sherlock nodded at Dr. Trevor’s words. And the evening went on with more talk of what younger Sherlock was like, and John enjoyed it because this was the first time he had ever met someone who had positive things to say about Sherlock. It was refreshing to see Sherlock actually happy to meet with someone from his past. 

Meanwhile William sat on a beanbag surrounded by other queer and transkids as they all shared pizza. “Yeah I am here for the summer, we’re going to UCSF to try and do some egg harvesting before starting T.”

“Dude that’s so cool,” said Bertie, another trans boy who was attending the group. “I’m kinda jealous, my parents won’t even acknowledge that I’m trans.”

“Oh I am loving your accent, do you go to some fancy boarding school?” asked Raffy. “Do you know any royals?”

“Yeah the school I go to has a boarding option, but I only do day school, since I think I would miss my dads too much despite it being only 15 minutes away by bus. My Papa is encouraging me to do one year in the dorms just so that I get the experience, my boyfriend does the boarding option but that’s because his medical team thinks it best that he lives out of home. His parents aren’t the best about the trans thing,” replied William he said as he adjusted his sitting on the bean bag. “As for knowing royals, sure yeah there are some in school; but meh it’s just some stuffy title. I mean my dads got knighted but I am pretty sure that was a punishment.” 

All the kids just stared at him, “so your parents are wealthy?”

William sighed, “technically no, that’s all family money, but my Papa doesn’t get full access to it. Also I am pretty sure he doesn’t want it, he tells me that the only way that much wealth can be amassed is when people are taken advantage of. So I think he is only using the money to send me to school and to pay for the things the NHS won’t cover.”

“Your Papa sounds hot,” said Kaily, one of the older looking girls in the bunch. 

“Yeah people keep saying that,” said William with a laugh. “But like who thinks about the attractiveness of their parents right?”

All the teens laughed, Kohl, a staff member walked in to tell the teens to prepare to leave for the night, and that they should stick together when they left. “Where are you meeting your dads?”

“Er… a few blocks away at Me & Tasty, they are having dinner with Dr. Trevor,” replied William as he shrugged on his jacket. 

“Oooh you got to come to Hot Cookie! It‘s right around the corner from Me & Tasty” exclaimed multiple teens as they waived for William to join them. They walked up the block to the cookie shop that was lit with red lights and plastered with people wearing red boxer briefs. 

William looked at all the different cookies, he found them all to appear rather delicious, but his eyes settled on the most ridiculous thing there. It was a giant chocolate shaped like a phallus, he had to show that to Phineas next time around. He picked some ginger nuts and chocolate toffee cookies. 

“Hey Aiofe, give him a cock cookie, I’ll pay,” yelled Bertie.

“Are you new to the group, darling?” asked Aiofe she had a thick Irish Brogue.

“Yes, I am going to be here for a few months, for some medical treatment, don’t worry it isn’t any thing terrifying, I am perfectly healthy,” replied William sheepishly accepting the cock cookie, he insisted on paying for it himself, and left a generous tip. He stood outside of the store with all the other teens, and stared awkwardly at the cock cookie. All the other teens stared at him in anticipation. He awkwardly held it to his mouth and closed his eyes and took a bite, he was suddenly greeted with a huge rush of coconut. He hated coconut, he gagged, and fumbled through his pockets only to pull out a handkerchief into which he promptly spat out the coconut. He looked up and started blushing furiously, there were his dads and a third man all laughing.

“Yeah it was like that for me too during my first time,” said John with a laugh.

“It’s okay, you can take your time, there is no need to rush,” added Sherlock.

Rafeal stopped up to his dads, and snapped, “hey keep moving you old bastards he’s just a teen.”

“Hey Rafeal, they aren’t strangers, that’s my dad and papa,” said William trying to hold back a laugh despite feeling slightly out of sorts over what his dads just witnessed.

“Oh,” said Rafeal, “um…. Sorry.”

  
  
  


Sherlock and John turned to Rafeal. “No problem, I am glad you were so quick to watchout for our son,” replied John as Sherlock nodded in agreement. “Hey William, you have an early appointment tomorrow, let’s head home.” 

William waved goodbye to all the other teens, and him and his dads walked back to their AirBNB. 

“Both your dads are hot,” exclaimed Kaily, everyone broke out in laughter.

William ducked down slightly because he was slightly embarrassed by people acknowledging his dads as hot. 

“How was the group?” asked Sherlock, looking down at his son with a smile.

“It was great, I look forward to meeting them all again,” replied William as he hopped onto the step of their temporary flat. “How was dinner?”

“Oh it was great, Dr. Trevor had a lot of fond memories about your Papa, and it was nice meeting him,” said John, he did genuinely like meeting Dr. Trevor, and felt like Sherlock was right in seeking him out because he loved the idea that William was thinking about a future. He certainly didn’t feel that way about the future when he was William’s age. 

That evening everyone went to sleep feeling quite hopeful and ready for all that they were going to learn tomorrow at their appointment with Dr. Victor Trevor. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know the American Healthcare system is fucked up, but like a good chunk of time spent with my pen pals when they visited the US was taking them to Costco so that their parents could get them fitted for smaller profile hearing aids. I figure because there was a time in history when NHS was giving kids outdated medical equipment because it was what they had in stock. And like I’ve helped enough trans folks from the UK to know that trans health in the UK can be a bit fucked up in terms of waitlist and meeting the requirements for surgery. So those who have the money sometimes choose to come and get surgery here in the US. Many of whom are doing it while studying abroad. Yes, there are indeed methods starting recently that would allow trans kids, even those on blockers, to save options for reproduction in the future. I figure in 12 years time it will get more accessible. Fucking hell though the last medical conference I was at, this doctor approached me and asked if I could convince her kid to undergo the treatment despite it being experimental. The kid was only 13, and very firmly against having kids; so I loudly exclaimed “you would force a 13 year old to have a child!” And I bounced because I saw a bunch of people who I knew were pediatric psychiatrists and one of the doctors who invented the methods used for preserving fertility approach her and it definitely looked like an argument broke out the next time I passed by them.
> 
> One of my things when I was an altar server, was working funerals where the deceased were outed as queer. But I remember one time this stuffy bureaucrat tackled the Partner of the deceased because the bureaucrat thought it disrespectful to the man’s position at work for him to be outed. Especially when the cause of death was an opportunistic infection typical of HIV/AIDS. I’m glad this isn’t as much of an issue these days.


	17. William Watson Has Some Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William just has some questions about his papa's work.

“Papa, do you help the cops cheat?” Asked William as they sat in the cab on their way back home from the support group. Today’s session was about how to deal with cops when your documents aren’t don’t acknowledge your identity. 

Sherlock sighed, he knew this question was bound to come up eventually, quite a few of his older trans girl friends were already experiencing “walking while trans” issues. And quite a few times had to get Lestrade involved since after all they were all still teens who were getting harassed just because many cops just assume things about these girls just for hanging out on the sidewalk. But they were just a bunch of teens hanging out on the street and the thing is teenagers are definitely having sex, so carrying large amounts of condoms really shouldn’t be used against them. Especially since so many of them were picking up condoms from support group to hand out to their peers who didn’t have access to safer sex supplies. William certainly had his share of legal problems but unlike his peers he wasn’t exactly innocent even if what he did was righting injustices, it was still very illegal and people used the incident to attempt to toss the trans youth services on the chopping block. “Yes, William, when the cops are out of their depth, which is quite often, they turn to me for help?”

“But Papa, are you obligated to follow the same rules as them? And are you sure they aren’t just using you to get suspects in ways they can’t legally pursue,” replied William. 

“I must admit I never thought of it that way,” said Sherlock looking out of the window; feeling rather uncomfortable with the conversation despite knowing it was important. “Okay maybe it is cheating but I have never gotten a case wrong.”

“I know you take private cases but do you ever take cases that are appeals cases?” Asked William. “There are plenty of people who are innocent but thanks to systematic oppression they are being incarcerated.” 

“Hmm… you know what that sounds like a good idea,” replied Sherlock. He pulled out his phone to look up any organization handling such cases. He found that the University of Greenwich had an Innocence Project, and he wrote them offering to help with investigations. He had to admit he never thought of such things until William mentioned it. He usually was helping people prove innocence earlier in the legal process not after conviction so the evidence to work is a bit harder to comb through. He thought maybe he could treat it like a cold case. 

A few days later, they got a response, the folks at the Innocence Project were thrilled that Sherlock was willing to work with them. They needed all the help they could get, and knew that Sherlock Holmes was definitely a great asset for them. He quickly solved five cases during his first visit, William was amazed that his Papa was so fast with helping folks get justice.

The following day Uncle Mycroft visited them, he was rather annoyed at his brother. Apparently some of the cases he solved managed to bring some of his agents into question. He wanted Sherlock to reconsider taking more cases from the folks at the Innocence Project because why should they be opening old wounds with the families affected by crime. 

Sherlock sighed and told his brother to fuck off. “Thinks about the wounds of the families broken apart by false convictions.”

William snuck up on Mycroft, “Papa says you are the British Government, what don’t you do something about systemic bias in law enforcement.”

Mycroft sighed and looked at William, “It is not my place to say,” he quickly got up and started out the door.

William had a pout, as he watched Mycroft leave. “Papa, has he ever done that before.” 

Sherlock laughed, “no, but that was fun to watch.”

“Do you think it will ever get better?” Asked William.

Sherlock sighed, “William, I am sorry but I don’t really know the answer to that, but maybe we can all help to at least make it better.” 

William nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Walking while trans” has to deal with the stereotype that all trans people in particular trans women are sex workers and therefore will be harassed by cops because of it. The last Vegas trip I took all the trans women with us got stopped because the security assumed them to be sex workers.


End file.
